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SEEKERS AFTER GOD. 



SENECA. 

' ' Ce nuage frange de rayons qui toucbe presqu' 4 I'immortelle aurore 
des verites chretiennes. " — Pontmaotin. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

On the banks of the Baetis — the modern Guadalquiver, 
— and under the woods that crown the southern slopes of 
the Sierra Morena, lies the beautiful and famous city of 
Cordova. It had been selected by Marcellus as the site 
of a Roman colony ; and so many Romans and Span- 
iards of high rank chose it for their residence, that it ob- 
tained from Augustus the honourable surname of the 
" Patrician Colony." Spain, during this period of the 
Empire, exercised no small influence upon the literature 
and politics of Rome. No less than three great Em- 
perors — Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius, — were natives 
of Spain. Columella, the writer on agriculture, was born 
at Cadiz ; Quintilian, the great writer on the education of 
an orator, was born at Calahorra ; the poet Martial was a 
native of Bilbilis ; but Cordova could boast the yet higher 
honour of having given birth to the Senecas, an honour 
which won for it the epithet of ''The Eloquent." A ruin 



4 SENECA. 

is shown to modern travellers which is popularly called 
the House of Seneca, and the fact is at least a proof 
that the city still retains some memory of its illustrious 
sons. 

Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of the philosopher, 
was by rank a Roman knight. What causes had led 
him or his family to settle in Spain we do not know, and 
the names Anneeus and Seneca are alike obscure. It has 
been vaguely conjectured that both names may involve 
an allusion to the longevity of some of the founders of 
the family, for Annaeus seems to be connected with annus, 
a year, and Seneca with senex^ an" old man. The common 
English composite plant ragwort is called senecio from the 
white and feathery pappus or append?Lge of its seeds ; and 
similarly, Isidore says that the first Seneca was so named 
because "he was born with white hair." 

Although the father of Seneca was of knightly rank, 
his family had never risen to any eminence ; it belonged 
to the class of nouveatix riches, and we do not know 
whether it was of Roman or of Spanish descent. But 
his mother Helvia — an uncommon name, which, by a curi- 
ous coincidence, belonged also to the mother of Cicero — - 
was a Spanish lady ; and it was from her that Seneca, as 
well as his famous nephew, the poet Lucan, doubtless 
derived many of the traits which mark their intellect a,nd 
their character. There was in the Spaniard a richness 
and splendour of imagination, an intensity and warmth, a 
touch of " phantasy and flame," which we find in these two 
men of genius, and which was wholly wanting to the 
Roman temperament. 

Of Cordova itself, except in a single epigram, Seneca 
makes no mention ; but this epigram suffices to show that 



INTRO D UC TOR 1 '. 5 

he must have been famihar with its stirring and memor- 
able traditions. The elder Seneca must have been living 
at Cordova during all the troublous years of civil war, 
when his native city caused equal offence to Pompey and 
to Caesar. Doubtless, too, he would have had stories to 
tell of the noble Sertorius, and of the tame fawn which 
gained for him the credit of divine assistance ; and contem- 
porary reminiscences of that day of desperate disaster when 
Caesar, indignant that Cordova should have embraced the 
cause of the sons of Pompey, avenged himself by a massa- 
cre of 22,000 of the citizens. From his mother Helvia, 
Seneca must often have heard about the fierce and gallant 
struggle in which her country had resisted the iron yoke of 
E.ome. Many a time as a boy must he have been told 
how long and how heroically Saguntum had withstood the 
assaults and baffled the triumph of Hannibal ; how bravely 
Viriathus had fought, and how shamefully he fell ; and how 
at length the unequal contest, which reduced Spain to the 
condition of a province, was closed, when the heroic de- 
fenders of Numantia, rather than yield to Scipio, reduced 
their city to a heap of blood-stained ruins. 

But, whatever may have been the extent to which Seneca 
was influenced by the Spanish blood which flowed in his 
veins, and the Spanish legends on which his youth was fed, 
it was not in Spain that his lot was cast. When he was 
yet aa infant in arms his father, with all his family, emi- 
grated from Cordova to Rome. What may have been the 
special reason for this important step we do not know ; 
possibly, like the father of Horace, the elder Seneca may 
have sought a better education for his sons than could be 
provided by even so celebrated a provincial town as Cor- 
dova ; possibly — for he belonged to a somewhat pushing 



6 SENECA. 

family — he may have desired to gain fresh wealth and 
honour in the imperial city. 

Thither we must follow him; and, as it is our object not 
only to depict a character but also to sketch the character- 
istics of a very memorable age in the world's history, we 
must try to get a glimpse of the family in the midst of 
which our young philosopher grew up, of the kind of edu- 
cation which he received, and of the influences which were 
likely to tell upon him during his childish and youthful 
years. Only by such means shall we be able to judge of 
him aright. And it is worth while to try and gain a right 
conception of the man, not only because he was very em- 
inent as a poet, an author, and a politician, not only be- 
cause he fills a very prominent place in the pages of the 
great historian, who has drawn so immortal a picture of 
Rome under the Emperors; not only because in him we 
can best study the inevitable signs which mark, even in the 
works 'of men of genius, a degraded people and a decaying 
literature ; but because he was, as the title of this volume 
designates him, a "Seeker after God." Whatever may 
have been the dark and questionable actions of his life — 
and in this narrative we shall endeavor to furnish a plain and 
unvarnished picture of the manner in which he lived, — it is 
certain that, as a philosopher and as a moralist, he fur- 
nishes us with the grandest and most eloquent series of 
truths to which, unilluminated by Christianity, the 
thoughts of man have ever attained. The purest and 
most exalted philosophic sect of antiquity was " the sect 
of the Stoics;" and Stoicism never found a literary 
exponent m-ore ardent, more eloquent, 'or more enlightened 
than Lucius Annaeus Seneca. So nearly, in fact, does 
he seem to have arrived at the truths of Christianity, 



IXTRODUCTORY. 7 

that to many it seemed a matter for marvel that he couid 
have known them without having heard them from inspired 
rps. He is constantly cited with approbation by some of 
the most eminent Christian fathers. TertuUian, Lactan- 
tius, even St. Augustine himself, quote his words with 
marked admiration, and St. Jerome appeals to him as " oicr 
Seneca." The, Council of Trent go further still, and quote 
him as though he were an acknowledged father of the 
Church. For many centuries there were some who ac- 
cepted as genuine the spurious letters supposed to have 
been interchanged between Seneca and St. Paul, in which 
Seneca is made to express a ^\^sh to hold among the 
Pagans the same beneficial position w^hich St. Paul held ia 
thvi Christian world. The possibility of such an intercourse, 
the nature and extent of such supposed obligations, vvdll 
come under our consideration hereafter. All that I here 
desire to say is, that in considering the life of Seneca we 
are not only dealing with a life which was rich in memor- 
able incidents, and which was cast into an age upon which 
Christianity davvmed as a ne,Y light in the darkness, but also 
the life of one who climbed the loftiest peaks of the moral 
philosophy of Paganism, and who in many respects may be 
regarded as the Co.yphseus of what has been som.etimes 
called a Natural Religion. 

It is not my purpose to turn aside from the narrative in 
order to indulge in moral reflections, because such reflec- 
tions will- come with tenfold force if they are naturally 
suggested to the reader's mind by the circumstances of the 
biography. But from first to last it will be abundantly 
ob\ious to every thoughtful mind that aHke the morality 
and the philosophy of Paganism, as contrasted with the 
splendour of revealed truth and the hohness of Christian 



8 SEXECA. 

life, are but as moonlight is to sunlight. The Stoical 
philosophy may be compared to a torch which flings a 
faint gleam here and there in the dusky recesses of a 
mighty cavern; Christianity to the sun pouring into the 
inmost depths of the same cavern its sevenfold illumination. 
The torch had a value and brightness of its own, but 
compared with the dawning of that new glory it appears 
to be dim and ineffectual, even though its brightness was 
a real brightness, and had been drawn from the same 
etherial source. - 



CHAPTER I. 

THE FAMILY AND EARLY YEARS OF SENECA. 

The exact aate of Seneca's birth is uncertain, but it took 
place in all probability about seven years before the com- 
mencement of the Christian era. It will give to his life a 
touch of deep and solemn interest *if we remember that, 
during all those guilty and stormy scenes amid which his 
earlier destiny was cast, there lived and taught in Palestine 
the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. 

The problems which for many years tormented his mind 
were beginning to find their solution, amid far other 
scenes, by men whose creed and condition he despised. 
While Seneca was being guarded by his attendant slave 
through the crowded and dangerous streets of Rome on his 
way to school, St. Peter and St. John were fisher-lads by 
the shores of Gennesareth ; while Seneca was ardently 
assimilating the doctrine of the stoic Attains, St. Paul, with 
no less fervancy of soul, sat learning at the feet of Gama- 
liel; and long before Seneci had made his way, through 
paths dizzy and dubious, to the zenith of his fame, un- 
known to him that Saviour had been crucified through 
whose only merits he and we can ever attain to our fi.nal 
rest. 

Seneca was about two years old when he was carried to 



I J SEX EC A. 

Rome in his nurse's arms. Like many other men who 
have succeeded in attaining eminence, he suffered much 
from ill-health in his early years. He tells us of one 
serious illness from which he slowly recovered under the 
aS'ectionate and tender nursing of his mother's sister. All 
his life long he was subject to attacks of asthma, which, 
after suffering every form of disease, he says that he con- 
siders to be the worst. At one time his personal sufferings 
weighed so heavily on his spirits that nothing save a re- 
gard for his father's wishes prevented him from suicide : 
and later in life he was only withheld from seeking the 
deliverance of death by the tender affection of his wife 
Paulina. He might have used with little alteration the 
words of Pope, that Ms various studies but served to help 
him 

"Through this long disease, my life,'''' 

The recovery from this tedious illness is the only allusion 
which Seneca has made to the circumstances of his child- 
hood. The ancient writers, even the ancient poets, but 
rarely refer, even in the most cursory manner, to their early 
years. The cause of this reticence offers a curious problem 
for . our inquiry, but the fact is indisputable. Whereas 
there is scarcely a single modern poet who has not lin- 
gered with undisguised feelings of happiness over the gentle 
memories of his childhood, not one of the ancient poets 
■ has systematically touched upon the theme at all. From 
Lydgate down to Tennyson, it would be easy to quote from 
our Enghsh poets a continuous Hne of KtIc songs on the sub- 
ject of boyish years. How to the young child the fir-trees 
seemed to touch the sky, how his heart leaped up at the 
sight of the rainbow, how he sat at his mother's feet and 



HIS FA MIL Y A XD EA RL Y YEA RS. 1 1 

pricked into paper the tissued flowers of her dress, how he 
chased the bright butterfly, or in his tenderness feared to 
brusli even the dust from off its whigs, how he learnt sweet 
lessons and said innocent prayers at his father s knee ; trifles 
hke these, yet trifles which may have been rendered noble 
and beautiful by a loving imagination, have been narrated 
over and over again in the songs of our poets. The lovely 
lines of Henry Vaughan might be taken as a type of thous- 
ands more : — 

'• Happy those early days, ^vllen I 
Shined in my Angel infancy. 
Before I understood this place 
Appointed for my second race, 
Or taught my soul to fancy aught 
But a -white celestial thought ; 

* * * 

Before I taught my tongue to wound 
My conscience '.vith a sinful sound 
Or had the black art to dispense 
A several sin to every sense ; 
But felt through all this fleshy dress, 
Bright shoots of everlastingneSs. " 

The memory of every student of English poetry ^vill fur- 
nish countless parallels to thoughts Hke these. How is it 
that no similar poem could be quoted from the whole range 
of ancient Hterature ? How is it that to the Greek and 
Roman poets that morning of life, which should have been 
so filled with " natural blessedness," seems to have been a 
blank ? How is is it that writers so voluminous, so do- 
mestic, so affectionate as Cicero, Virgil, and Horace do 
not make so much as a single allusion to the existence of 
their own mothers ? 

To answer this question fully would be to wTite an entire 



12 SENECA. 

essay on the difference between ancient and modern life, 
and would carry me far away from my immediate subject.* 
But 1 may say generally, that the explanation rests in the 
fact that in ail probability childhood among the ancients 
was a disregarded, and in most cases a far less happy, 
period than it is with us. The birth of a child in the house 
of a Greek or a Roman was not necessarily a subject for re- 
joicing. If the father, when the child was first shown to 
him, stooped down and took it in his arms, it was received 
as a member of the family ; if he left it unnoticed then it 
was doomed to death, and was exposed in some lonely or 
barren place to the mercy of the wild beasts, or of the first 
passer-by. And even if a child escaped this fate, yet for 
the first seven or eight years of Hfe he was kept in the 
gynasceum, or women's apartments, and rarely or never 
saw his father's face. No halo of romance or poetry was 
shed over those early years. Until the child was full grown 
the absolute power of life or death rested in his father's 
hands; he had no freedom, and met with little notice. 
For individual life the ancients had a very slight regard; 
there was nothing autobiographic or introspective in their 
temperament. With them public life, the life of the State, 
was everything; domestic life, the life of the individual, 
occupied but a small share of their consideration. All the 
innocent pleasures of infancy, the joys of the hearth, the 
charm of the domestic circle, the flow and sparkle of child- 
ish gaity, were by them but little appreciated. The years 
before manhood were years of prospect, and in most cases 

* See, however, the same question treated from a somewhat different 
point of view by M. Nisard, in his charming Etudes sur les Poetes de la 
Decadence, ii. 17, sqq. 



HIS FAMILY A XD EARLY YEARS. 13 

they offered but little to make them worth the retrospect. 
It is a mark of the more modern character which stamps 
the writings of Seneca, as compared with earlier authors, 
that he addresses his mother in terms of the deepest affec- 
tion, and cannot speak of his darhng little son except in a 
voice that seems to break with tears. 

Let us add another curious consideration. The growth 
of the personal character, the reminiscences of a hfe ad- 
vancing into perfect' consciousness, are largely moulded by 
the gradual recognition of moral laws, by the sense of mystery 
evolved in the inevitable struggle between duty and pleas- 
ure, — between the desire to do right and the temptation to 
do wrong. But among the ancients the conception cf 
morality was so wholly different from ours, their notions of 
moral obligation were, in the immense majority of cases, so 
much less stringent and so much less important, they had 
so faint a disapproval for sins which we condemn, and so 
weak an indignation against vices which we abhor, that in 
their early years we can hardly suppose them to have often 
fathomed those " abysmal deeps of personality," the recog- 
nition of which is a necessary element of marked individual 
growth. 

We have, therefore, no materials for forming any vivid 
picture of Seneca's childhood ; but, from what we gather 
about the circumstances and the character of his family, we 
should suppose that he was exceptionally fortunate. The 
Senecas were wealthy ; they held a good position in society; 
they were a family of cultivated taste, of literary pursuits, 
of high character, and of amiable dispositions. Their 
wealth raised them above the necessity ot those mean 
cares and degrading shifts to eke out a scanty liveLhood 
which mark- the career of other literary men who were their 



14 SENECA. 

contemporaries. Their rank and culture secured them the 
intimacy of ail who were best worth knowing in Roman 
circles ; and the general dignity and morality which marked 
their lives would free them from all likelihood of being 
thrown into close intercourse with the numerous class of 
luxurious epicureans, whose unblushing and unbounded 
vice gave an infamous notority to the capital of the 
world. 

Of Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of our philosopher, 
we know few personal particulars, except that he was a 
professional rhetorician, who drew up for the use of his 
sons and pupils a number of oratorical exercises, which 
have come down to us under the names of Suasorice and 
Controversies, They are a series of declamatory arguments 
on both sides, respecting a number of historical or purely 
imaginary subjects; and it would be impossible to conceive 
any reading more utterly unprofitable. But the elder 
Seneca was steeped to the lips in an artificial rhetoric; and 
these highly elaborated arguments, invented in order to 
sharpen the faculties for purposes of declamation and 
debate, were probably due partly to his note-book and 
partly to his memory. His memory was so prodigious that 
after hearing two thousand words he could repeat them 
again in the same order. Few of those who have possessed 
such extraordinary powers of memory have been men of 
first-rate talent, and the elder Seneca was no exception. 
But if his memory did not improve his original genius, it 
must at any rate have made him a very agreeable member 
of society, and have furnished him with an abundant store 
of personal and political anecdotes. In short, Marcus 
Seneca was a well-to-do, intelligent man of the world, with 
plenty of common sense, with a turn for public speaking, 



HIS FA MIL Y AXD EA RL Y YEA RS. 1 5 

with a profound dislike and contempt for anything which 
he considered philosophical or fantastic, and with a keen 
eye to tlie main advantage. 

His wife Helvia, if we may trust the panegyric of her 
son, was on the other hand a far less common-place char- 
acter. But for her husband's disHke to learning and phil- 
osophy she would have become a proficient in both, and in 
a short period of study she had made a considerable ad- 
vance. Yet her intellect was less remarkable than the 
nobihty and sweetness of her mind ; other mothers loved 
their sons because their own ambition was gratified by 
their honours, and their feminine wants supplied by their 
riches; but Helvia loved her sons for their own sakes, 
treated them with liberal generosity, but refused to reap 
any personal benefit from their wealth, managed their 
patrimonies ^with disinterested zeal, and spent her o\\ti 
money to bear the expenses of their political career. She 
rose superior to the foibles and vices of her time. Immo- 
desty, the plague-spot of her age, had never infected her 
pure hfe. Gems and pearls had little charms for her. She 
was never ashamed of her children, as though their presence 



pr( 



betrayed her own advancing age. '' You never stained 
your face," says her son, when writing to console her in his 
exile, " with walnut-juice or rouge ; you never delighted in 
dresses indelicately low ; your single ornament was a love- 
hness which no age could destroy; your special glory 
was a conspicuous chastity." ^^'e may well say with Mr. 

Tennyson — 

' ' Happy he 
Vv'ith such a mother! faith in womankind 
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 
Comes easy to him, and, though he trip and fall, 
He shall not blind his soul with clay." 



t6 ■ S EXEC A. 

Nor was his mother Helvia the only high-minded lady in 
whose society the boyhood of Seneca was spent. Her 
sister, whose name is unknown, that aunt who had so ten- 
derly protected the deHcate boy, and nursed him through 
the sickness of his infancy, seems to have inspired him with 
an affection of unusual warmth. He tells us how, when 
her husband was Prefect of Egypt, so far was she from act- 
ing as was usual mth the wives of provincial governors, that 
she was as much respected and beloved as they were for 
the most part execrated and shunned. So serious was the 
evil caused by these ladies, so intollerable was their cruel 
rapacity, that it had been seriously debated in the Senate 
whether they should ever be allowed to accompany their 
husbands. Not so with Helvia's sister. She was never 
Eeen in pubhc; she allowed no provincial to visit her house; 
she begged no favour for herself, and suffered none to be 
begged from her. The province not only praised her, but, 
what was still more to her credit, barely knew anything 
about her, and longed in vain for another lady who should 
imitate her virtue and self-control, Egypt was the head- 
quarters for biting and loquacious calumny, yet even Egypt 
never breathed a word against the sanctity of her life. 
And when during their homeward voyage her husband 
died, in spite of danger and tempest and the deeply- 
rooted superstition which considered it perilous to sail 
with a corpse on board, not even the imminent peril of 
shipwreck could drive her to separate herself from her 
husband's body until she had provided for its safe and 
honorable sepulchre. These are the traits of a good and 
heroic woman ; and that she reciprocated the regard which 
makes her nephew so emphatic in her praise may be. con- 
jectured from the fact that, when he made his debut 2.:, a 



HIS FA MIL Y A A'D EA RL 1 ' YEA RS. 1 7 

candidate for the honours of the State, she emerged from 
her habitual seclusion, laid aside for a time her matronly 
reserve, and, in order to assist him in his canvass, faced for 
his sake the rustic impertinence and ambitious turbulence 
of the crowds who thronged the Forum and the streets 
of Rome. 

Two brothers, very different from each other in their 
habits and character, completed the family circle, Marcus 
Annaeus Novatus and Lucius Annaeus Mela, of whom the 
former was older the latter younger, than their more 
famous brother. 

Marcus Ann^us Novatus is known to history under the 
name of Junius GaUio, which he took when adopted by the 
orator of that name, who was a friend of his father. He is 
none other than the Gallio of the Acts, the Proconsul of 
Achaia, whose name has passed current among Christians 
as a proverb of complacent indifference.* 

The scene, however, in which Scripture gives us a 
glimpse of him has been much misunderstood, and to talk of 
him as "careless Gallio," or to apply the expression that " he 
cared for none of these things," to indifference in religious 
matters, is entirely to misapply the spirit of the narrative. 
What really happened was this. The Jews, indignant at 
the success of Paul's preaching, dragged him before the 
tribunal of GaUio, and accused him of introducing illegal 
modes of worship. When the Apostle was about to defend 
himself, Gallio contemptuously cut him short by saying to 
the Jews, " If in truth there were in question any act of in- 
justice or wicked misconduct, I should naturally have 
tolerated your complaint. But if this is some verbal in- 

*Acts XXV. 19. 



1 8 SEX EC A. 

quiry about mere technical matters of your law, look after 
it yourselves. I do not choose to be a judge of such mat- 
ters." With these words he drove them from his judgment- 
seat with exactly the same fine Roman contempt for the 
Jews and their religious affairs as was subsequently ex- 
pressed by Festus to the sceptical Agrippa, and as had 
been expressed previously by Pontius Pilate* to the tu- 
multous Pharisees. Exulting at this discomfiture of the 
hated Jews and apparently siding with Paul, the Greeks 
then went in a body, seized Sosthenes, the leader of the 
Jewish synagogue, and beat, him in full view of the Procon- 
sul seated on his tribunal. This was the event at which 
Gallio looked on with such imperturbable disdain. What 
could it possibly matter to him, the great Proconsul, whether 
the Greeks beat a poor wretch of a Jew or not ? So long 
as they did not make a riot,' or give him any further trouble 
about the matter, they might beat Sosthenes or any number 
of Jews black 'and blue if it pleased them, for all he was 
likely to care. 

What a vivid ghmpse do we here obtain, from the 
graphic picture of an eye-witness, of the daily life in an 
ancient provincial forum ; how completely do we seem to 
catch sight tor a moment of tiiat habitual expression of 

*Matt. xxvii. 24, " See ye to it." Cf. Acts xiv. 15, " Look ye to 
it." Toleratiori .existed in the Roman Empire, arid the magistrates 
often interfered to protect the Jews from massacre ; but they absolute- 
ly and persistently refused to trouble themselves with any attempt to 
imderstand their doctrines or enter into their disputes. The tradition 
that Gallio sent some of St. Paul's writings to his brother Seneca is 
utterly absurd ; and indeed at this time (A. D. 54), St. Paul had writ- 
ten nothing except the two Epistles to the Thessalonians. (See Cony- 
beare and Howson, St. Paul, vol. i. ch. xii. ; Aubertin, SMegue et St. 
Paul) 



HIS FAMILY A XD EARLY YEARS. 19 

contempt which curled the thin Hps of a Roman aristocrat 
in the presence of subject nations, and especially of Jews ! 
If Seneca had come across any of the Alexandrian Jews in 
his Egyptian travels, the only impression left on his mind 
was that expressed by Tacitus, Juvenal, and Suetonius, 
who never mention the Jews without execration. In a 
passage, quoted by St. Augustine {De Civit. Dei, iv. 11) 
from his lost book on Superstitions, Seneca speaks of the 
multitude of their proselytes, and calls them ''gens scelera- 
tissima^^ a ''■ fnost criminal raceT It has been often con- 
jectured — it has even been seriously beheved — that Seneca 
had personal intercourse with St. Paul and learnt from him 
some lessons of Christianity. The scene on which we have 
just been gazing will show us the utter unlikelihood of such 
a . supposition. Probably the nearest opportunity which 
ever occurred to bring the Christian Apostle into intel- 
lectual contact with the Roman philosopher was this occa- 
sion, when St. Paul was dragged as a prisoner into the 
presence of Seneca's elder brother. The utter contempt 
and indifference with which he was treated, the manner in 
which he was summarily cut short before he could even 
open his lips in his own defence, v/ill give us a just 
estimate of the manner in which Seneca v.'ould have 
been likely to regard St. Paul. It is highly improbable 
that Gallio ever retained the sHghtest impresssion or 
memory of so every-day a circumstance as this, by 
which alone he is known to the world. It is possible 
that he had not even heard the mere name of Paul, 
and that, if he ever thought of him at all, it was only as a 
miserable, ragged, fanatical Jew, of dim eyes and dimin- 
utive stature, who had once wished to inflict upon him 
a harangue, and who had once come for a few moments 



20 S EXEC A. 

"betwixt the wind and his nobility." He would indeed 
have been unutterably amazed if anyone had whispered to 
him that well nigh the sole circumstance which would 
entitle him to be remembered by posterity, and the sole 
event of his life by which he would be at all generally 
known, was that momentary and accidental relation to his 
despised prisoner. 

But Novatus — or, to give him his adopted name, Gallio 
— presented to his brother Seneca, and to the rest of the 
world, a very different aspect from that under which we are 
wont to think of him. By them he was regarded as an 
illustrious declaimer, in an age when declamation was the 
most valued of all accomplishments. It was true that there 
was a sort of " tinkle," a certain falsetto tone in his style, 
which offended men of robust and severe taste ; but this 
meretricious resonance of style was a matter of envy and 
admiration when affectation was the rage, and when the 
times were too enervated and too corrupt for the manly 
conciseness and concentrated force of an eloquence dictated 
by liberty and by passion. He seems to have acquired 
both among his friends and among strangers the epithet of 
"dulcis," "the charming or fascinating GaUio :" "This is 
more," says the poet Statius, " than to have given 
Seneca to the world, and to have begotten the sweet 
Gallio." Seneca's portrait of him is singularly faultless. 
He says that no one was so gentle to any one as GalHo 
was to every one; that his charm of manner won over 
even the people whom mere chance threw in liis way, 
and that such was the force of his natural goodness that 
no one suspected his behaviour, as though it were due 
to art or simulation. Speaking of flattery, in his fourth 
book of Natural Questions, he says to his friend Lu- 



HIS FA MIL V A ND EA RL V YEA RS. 2 1 

cilius, "I used to say to you that my brother Gallio 
(whom every one loves a Utile, even people who cannot 
love him more) was wholly ignorant of other vices, but 
even detested this. You might try him in any direction. 
You began to praise his intellect — an intellect of the 
highest and worthiest kind, . . . and he walked away ! 
You began to praise his moderation, he instantly cut 
short your first words. You began to express admiration 
for his blandness and natural suavity of manner, . . . 
yet even here he resisted your compliments ; and if you 
were led to exclaim that you had found a man who could 
not be overcome by those insidious attacks which every 
one else admits, and hoped that he would at least tole- 
rate this compliment because of its truth, even on this 
ground he would resist your flattery ; not as though you 
had been awkward, or as though he suspected that you 
were jesting with him, or had some secret end in view, 
but simply because he had a horror of every form of ad- 
ulation." We can easily imagine that Gallio was Seneca's 
favorite brother, and we are not surprised to find that 
the philosopher dedicates to him his three books on 
Anger, and his charming little treatise " On a Happy 
Life." 

Of the third brother, L. Annaeus Mela, we have fewer 
notices; but, from what we know, we should conjee-- 
ture that his character no less than his reputation was 
inferior to that of his brothers ; yet he seems to have 
been the favorite of his father, who distinctly asserts 
that his intellect was capable of every excellence, and 
superior to that of his brothers.* This, however, may 
have been because Mela, " longing only to long for 
^^M. Ann. Cciec. Co^ttrov. ii. Pnpf, 



22 SEN EC AT 

nothing," was content with his father's rank, and devoted 
himself wholly to the study of eloquence. Instead of 
entering into public life, he deliberately withdrew himself 
from all civil duties, and devoted himself to tranquiUty 
and ease. Apparently he preferred to be a farmer-general 
(publicaims) and nof a consul. His chief fame rests in 
the fact that he was father of Lucan, the poet of the 
decadence or declining literature of Rome. The only 
•anecdote about him which has come down to us is one 
that sets his avarice in a very unfavourable light. When 
his famous son, the unhappy poet, had forfeited his life, 
as well as covered himself with infamy by denouncing 
his own mother Attila in the conspiracy of Piso, Mela, 
instead of being overwhelmed with shame and agony, 
immediately began to collect with indecent avidity 
his son's debts, as though to show Nero that he felt 
no great sorrow for his bereavement. But this was not 
enough for Nero's malice ; he told Mela that he must fol- 
low his son, and Mela was forced to obey the order, and 
to die. 

Doubtles Helvia, if she survived her sons and grand- 
sons, must have bitterly rued the day when, with her hus- 
band and her young children, she left the quiet retreat 
of a life in Cordova. Each of the three boys grew up 
to a man of genius, and each of them grew up to stain 
his memory with deeds that had been better left undone, 
and to die violent deaths by their own hands or by 
a tyrant's will. Mela died as we have seen ; his son 
Lucan and his brother Seneca w^ere driven to death by 
the cruel orders of Nero. GalHo, after stooping to panic- 
stricken supplications for his preservation, died ulti- 
mately by suicide. It was a shameful and miserable end 



HIS FA MIL V A ND EA RL Y YEA RS. 23 

for them all, but it was due partly to their own errors, 
partly to the hard necessity of the degraded times in which 
they lived. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE EDUCATION OF SENACA. 



For a reason which I have already indicated — I mean 
the habitual reticence of the ancient writers respecting 
the period of their boyhood — it is not easy to form a 
very vivid conception of the kind of education given to a 
Roman boy of good family up to the age of fifteen, when 
he laid aside the golden amulet and embroidered ftoga^^to 
assume a more independent mode of life. 

A few facts, however, we can gather from the scattered 
allusions of the poets Horace, Juvenal, Martial, and Per- 
sius. From these we learn that the school-masters were 
for the most part underpaid and despised,* while at the 
same time an erudition alike minute and useless was rigidly 
demanded of them. We learn also that they were exceed- 
ingly severe in the infliction of corporeal punishment ; Or- 
bilius, the schoolmaster of Horace, appears to have been a 
perfect Dr. Busby, and the poet Martial records with in- 
dignation the barbarities of chastisement which he daily 
witnessed. 

The things taught were chiefly arithmetic, grammar — both 

* For the miseries of the literary class, and especially of schoolmas- 
ters, see ]nv, Sat vii. 



HIS EDUCATION. 25 

Greek and Latin — reading, and repetition of the chief Latin 
poets. There was also a good deal of recitation and of 
theme-writing on all kinds of trite historical subjects. The 
arithmetic seems to have been mainly of a very simple and 
severely practical k^d, especially the computation of in- 
terest and compound interest ; and the philology generally, 
both grammer and criticism, was singularly narrow, unin- 
teresting, and useless. Of what conceivable advantage can 
it have been to any human being to know the name of the 
mother of Hecuba, of the nurse of Anchises, of the step- 
mother of Anchemolus, the number of years Acestes lived, 
and how many casks of wine the SiciHans gave to the 
Phrygians? Yet these were the dispicable minutice which 
every schoolmaster was then expected to have at his fin- 
gers' ends, and every boy-scholar to learn at the point of 
the ferule — trash which was only fit to be unlearned the 
moment it was known. 

For this kind of verbal criticism and fantastic archaeology 
Seneca, who had probably gone through it all, expresses a 
profound arid very rational contempt. In a rather amusing 
passage* he contrasts the kind of use which would be 
made of a Virgil- lesson by a philosopher and a gram- 
marian. Coming to the lines, 

" Each happiest day for mortals speeds the first, 
Then crowds disease behind and age accurst," 

the philosopher will point out why and in what sense the 
early days of fife are the best days, and how rapidly the 
evil days succeed them, and consequently how infinitely 
important it is to use well the golden dawn of our being. 
But the verbal critic will content himself with the remark 

♦ Ep. cviii. 



26 SENECA, 

that Virgil always uses fugio of the flight of time, and al- 
ways joins "old age" with "disease," and consequently 
that the3e are tags to be remembered, and plagiarized here- 
after in the pupils' ''-original composition." Similarly, if 
the book in hand be Cicero's treatise " On the Common- 
wealth," instead of entering into great political questions, 
our grammarian will note that one of the Roman kings had 
no father (to speak of), and another no mother ; that dic- 
tators used formerly to be called "masters of the people;" 
that Romulus perished during an eclipse ; that the old form 
of I'eipsa was reapse, and of se ipse was sepse; that the start- 
ing point in the circus which is now called creta^ or 
"chalk," used to be called caix^ or career-; that in the time 
of Ennuis opera meant not only " work," but also " assist- 
ance," and so on, and so on. Is this true education ? or 
rather, should our great aim ever be to translate noble pre- 
cepts into daily action? " Teach me," he says, " to despise 
pleasure and glory ; afterwards you shall teach me to dis- 
entangle difficulties, to distinguish ambiguities, to see 
through obscurities ; now teach me what is necessary." 
Considering the condition of much which in modern times 
passes under the name of " education," we may possibly 
find that the hints of Seneca are not yet wholly obsolete. 
What kind of schoolmaster taught the little Seneca when 
under the care of the slave who was called pedagogics^ or a 
"boy-leader" (whence our -woidi pedagogue), he daily went 
with his brothers to school through the streets of Rome, we 
donot know. He may have been a severe Orbilius, or he 
may have been one of those noble-minded tutors whose 
ideal portraiture is drawn in such beautiful colours by the 
learned and amiable Quintilian. Seneca has not alluded 
to any one who taught him during his early days. The 



HIS EDUCATION. 27 

only schooLellow whom he mentions by name in his volu- 
minous writings is a certain Claranus, a deformed boy, 
whom, after leaving school, Seneca never met again until 
they were both old men, but of whom he speaks with great 
admiration. In spite of his hump-back, Claranus appeared 
even beautiful in the eyes of those who knew him well, be- 
cause his virtue and good sense left a stronger impression 
than his deformity, and "his body was adorned by the 
beauty of his soul." 

It was not until mere school-lessons were finished that a 
boy began seriously to enter upon the studies of eloquence 
and philosophy, which therefore furnish some analogy to 
what we should call "a university education." GalHo and 
Mela, Seneca's elder and younger brothers, devoted them- 
selves heart and soul to the theory and practice of eloquence ; 
Seneca made the rarer and the wiser choice in giving his 
entire enthusiasm to the study of philosophy. 

I say the wiser choice, because eloquence is not a thing 
for which one can give a receipt as one might give a receipt 
for making eau-de-Cologne. Eloquence is the noble, the 
harmonious, tlie passionate expression of truths profoundly 
realized, or of emotions intensely felt. It is a fiam.e which 
cannot be kindled by artificial means. Rhetoric may be 
taught if any one thinks it worth learning ; but eloquence is 
a gift as innate as the genius from which it springs. " Ciijus 
■vitafiilgur^ ejus verba fonitrua." — "if a man's life be light- 
ning^ his words will be thunders." But the kind of oratory 
to be obtained by a constant practice of declamation such 
a3 that which occupied the schools of the Rhetors will be a 
ve.y artificial lightning and a very imitated thunder — not 
the artillery of heaven, but the Chinese fire and rolled blad- 
ders of the stage. Nothing could be more false, more hoi- 



28 SEA' EGA. 

low, more pernicious than the perpetual attempt to drill 
numerous classes of youths into a reproduction of the mere 
manner of the ancient orators. An age of unlimited decla- 
mation, an age of incessant talk, is a hotbed in which real 
depth and nobility of feeling runs miserably to seed. Style 
is never worse than it is in ages which employ themselves 
in teaching little else. Such teaching produces an empti- 
ness of thought concealed under a plethora of words. This 
age of countless oratorical masters was emphatically the 
period of- decadence a.nd decay. There is a hollow ring 
about it, a falsetto tone in its voice ; a fatiguing literary 
grimace in the manner of its authors. Even its writers of 
genius were injured and corrupted by the prevailing mode. 
They can say nothing simply ; they are always in contor- 
tions. Their very indignation and bitterness of heart, genu- 
ine as it is, assumes a theatrical form of expression.* They 
abound in unrealities : their whole manner is defaced with 
would-be cleaverness, with antitheses, epigrams, paradoxes, 
forced expressions, figures and tricks of speech, straining 
after originality and profundity when they are merely repeat- 
ing very commonplace remarks. What else could one ex- 
pect in an age of salaried declaimers, educated in a false 
atmosphere of superficial talk, for ever haranguing and per- 
orating about great passions which they had never fe.t, and 
great deeds which they would have been the last to imitate ? 
After perpetually immolating the Tarquins and the Pisis- 
tratids in inflated grandiloquence, they would go to lick the 
dust off a tyrant's shoes. How could eloquence survdve 
when the magnanimity and freedom which inspired it were 

* "Juvenal, eleve dans les cris de i'ecole 

Poussa jusqu'a l' exces sa mordante hyperbole." — • 

BOILEAU. 



HIS EDUCATIOX. 29 

dead, and when the men and books which professed to 
teach it were filled with despicable directions about the ex- 
act position in which the orator was to use his hands, and 
as to whether it was a good thing or not for him to slap his 
forehead and disarrange his hair ? 

The philosophic teaching which even from boyhood exer- 
cised a powerful fascination on the eager soul of Seneca was 
at least something better than this j and more than one of 
his philosophic teachers succeeded in winning his warm af- 
fection, and in moulding the principles and habits of his 
life. Two of them he mentions with special regard, name- 
ly Sotion the Pythagorean, and Attalus the Stoic. He also 
heard the lectures of the fluent and musical Fabianus Papi- 
rius, but seems to have owed less to him than to his other 
teachers. 

Sotion had embraced the views of Pythagoras respecting 
the transmigration of souls, a doctrine wh'ch made the eat- 
ing of animal food Httle better than cannibaHsm or parri- 
cide. But, even if any of his followers rejected this view, 
Sotion would still maintain that the eating of animals, if not 
an impiety, was at least a cruelty and a waste. " What hard- 
ship does my advice inflict on you?" he used to ask. "I 
do but deprive you of the food of vultures and lions." The 
ardent boy — for at this time he could not have been more 
than seventeen years old — was so convinced by these con- 
siderations that he became a vegetarian. At first the ab- 
stinence from meat was painful, but after a year he tells us 
( and many vegetarians will confirm his experience ) it was 
not only easy but delightful ; and he used to believe, though 
he would not assert it as a fact, that it made his intellect 
m.ore keen and active. He only ceased to be a vegetarian 
in obedience to the rem^onstrance of his unphilosophical 



so SEA-EC A. 

father, who would have easely tolerated what he regarded 
as a mere vagary had it not involved the danger of giving 
rise to a calumny. For about this time Tiberius banished 
from Rome all the followers of strange and foreign relig- 
ions; and, as fasting was one of the rites practiced in some 
of them, Seneca's father thought that perhaps his son might 
incur, by abstaining from meat, the horrible suspicion of 
being a Christia.n or a Jew ! 

Another Pythagorean philosopher whom he admired and 
whom he quotes was Sextius, from whom he learnt the ad- 
mirable practice of daily self-examination: — "When the 
day was over, and he betook himself to his nightly rest, he 
used to ask himself. What evil have you cured to day? What 
vice have you resisted ? In what particular have you im- 
proved ? " "I too adopt this custom," says Seneca, in his 
book on Anger, " and I daily plead my cause before myself, 
when the hght has been taken away, and my wife, who is 
now aware of my habit, has became silent ; I carefully con- 
sider in my heart the entire day, and take a deliberate esti- 
mate of my deeds and words." 

It was however the Stoic Attalus who seems to have had 
the main share in the instruction of Seneca ; and Ms teach- 
ing did not involve any practical results which the elder 
Seneca considered objectionable. He tells us how he used 
to haunt the school of the eloquent philosopher, being the 
first to enter and the last to leave it. " When I heard him 
declaiming," he says, " against v'ce, and error, and the ills 
of life, I often felt compassion for the human race, and be- 
lieved my teacher to be exalted above the ordinary stature q^f 
mankind. In Stoic fashion he used to call himself a king; but 
to me his sovereignty seemed more than royal, seeing that 
it was in his power to pass his judgments on kings them- 



- HIS EDUCATIOX. 3 1 

selves, \^^len he began to set forth the praises of poverty, 
and to show how heavy and superfluous was the burden 
of all that exceeded the ordinary wants of Ufe, I often 
longed to leave school a poor man. When he began to 
reprehend our pleasures, to praise a chaste body, a mod- 
erate table, and a mind pure not from all unlawful but 
even from all superfluous pleasures, it was my deUght to 
set strict limits to all voracity and gluttony. And these 
precepts, my Lucilius, have left some permanent results; 
for I embraced them ^\^ith impetuous eagerness, and after- 
wards, w^hen I entered upon a political career, I retained a 
few of my good beginnings. In consequence of them, I 
have all my life long renounced eating oysters and mush- 
rooms, which do not satisfy hunger but only sharpen appe- 
tite ; for this reason I habitually abstain from perfumes, be- 
cause the sweetest perfume for the body is none at all : for 
this reason I do without wines and baths. Other habits 
which I once abandoned have come back to me, but in 
such a way that I merely substitute moderation for absti- 
nence, which perhaps is a still more difficult task ; since 
there are some things which it is easier for the mind to cut 
away altogether than to enjoy in moderation. Attalus 
used to recommend a hard couch in which the body could 
not sink ; and, even in my old age, I use one of such a 
kind that it leaves no impress of the sleeper. I have told 
you these anecdotes to prove to you what eager impulses 
our little scholars would have to all that is good, if any one 
were to exhort them and urge them on. But the harm 
springs paitly from the fault of preceptors, who teach us 
how to argue, not how to live; and partly from the fault of 
pupils, who bring to their teacher a purpose of training 



32 SENECA. 

their intellect and not their souls. Thus it is tnat philoso- 
phy has been degraded into mere philology." 

In another lively passage, Seneca brings vividly before 
us a picture of the various scholars assembled in a school 
of the philosophers. After observing that philosophy exer- 
cises some influence even over those who do not go deeply 
in it, just as people sitting in a shop of perfumes carry 
away with them some of the odour, he adds, " Do we not, 
however, know some who have been among the audience 
of a philosopher for many years, and have been even en- 
tirely uncoloured by his teaching ? Of course I do, even 
most persistent and continuous hearers ; whom I do not 
call pupils, but mere passing auditors of philosophers. 
Some come to hear, not to learn, just as we are brought 
into a theatre for pleasure's sake, to delight our ears with 
language, or with the voice, or with plays. You will ob- 
serve a large portion of the audience to whom the philoso- 
pher's school is a mere haunt of their leisure. Their ob- 
ject is not to lay aside any vices there, or to accept any 
law in accordance with which they may conform their life, 
but that they may enjoy a mere tickling of their ears. 
Some, however, even come with tablets in their hands, 
to catch up not things but words. Some with eager coun- 
tenances and spirits are kindled by magnificent utterances, 
and these are charmed by the beauty of the thoughts, 
not by the sound of empty words ; but the impres- 
sion is not lasting. Few only have attained the power 
of carrying home with them the frame of mind into which 
they had been elevated." 

It was to this small latter class that Seneca belonged. 
He became a Stoic from very early years. The Stoic 
philosophers, undoubtedly the noblest and purest of ancient 



HIS EDUCATIOX. ' 33 

sects, received their name from the fact that their founder 
Zeno had lectured in the Painted Porch or Stoa Psecile of 
Athens. The influence of these austere and eloquent 
masters, teaching high lessons of morality and continence, 
and inspiring their young audience with the glow of their 
owTi enthusiasm for \irtue, must have been invaluable in 
that effete and drunken age. Their doctrines were pushed 
to yet more extravagant lengths by the C}Tiics, who were 
so called from a Greek word meaning " dog," from what 
appeared to the ancients to be the dog-hke brutality of 
their manners. Juvenal scornfully remarks, that the Stoics 
only differed from the Cynics " by a tunic," which the 
Stoics wore and the Cynics discarded. Seneca never in- 
deed adopted the practices of Cynicism, but he often 
speaks admiringly of the arch-Cynic Diogenes, and re- 
peatedly refers to the Cynic Demetrius, as a man deserving 
of the very highest esteem. " I take with me everywhere," 
writes he to LuciHus, " that best of men, Demetrius ; and 
leaving those who wear purple robes, I talk with him who 
is half naked. Why should I not admire him ? I have 
seen, that he has no want. Any one may despise all things, 
but no one ca7t possess all things. The shortest road to 
riches Hes through contempt of riches. But our Demetrius 
lives not as though he despised all things, but as though he 
simply suffered others to possess them." 

These habits and sentiments throw considerable light on 
Seneca's character. They show that even from liis earliest 
days he was capable of adopting self-denial as a principle, 
and that to his latest days he retained many private habits 
of a simple and honourable character, even when the exi- 
gencies of pubhc life had compelled him to modify others. 
Although he abandoned an unusual abstinence out of re- 



34 SEX EC A. 

spect for his father, we have positive evidence, that he re- 
sumed ill his old age the spare practices which in h_s 
enthusiastic youth he had caught from the lessons of high- 
minded teachers. These facts are surely sufficient to refute 
at any rate those gross charges against the private character 
of Seneca, venomously retailed by a jealous Greekling like 
Dio Cassius, which do not rest on a tittle of evidence, and 
seem to be due to a mere spirit of envy and calumny. I 
shall not again allude to these scandals because I utterly 
dlsbe'.ieve them. A man who in his " History " could, as 
Dio Ca"sius has done, put into the month of a Roman 
senator such insane falsehoods as he has pretended that 
Fufius Calenus uttered in full senate against Cicero, was 
evidently actuated by a spirit which disentitles his state- 
ments to •Bny credence. Seneca was an inconsistent phil- 
osopher both in theory and in practice ; be fell beyond all 
quest' on into serious errors, which deeply compromise his 
character j but, so far from being a dissipated or luxurious 
man, there is every reason to believe that in the very midst 
of vvealth and splendour, and all the temptations which they 
involve, he regained alike the simplicity of his habits and 
the rectitude of his mind. Whatever may have been the 
almost fabulous value of his five hundred tables of cedar 
and ivory, they were rarely spread with any more sump- 
tuous entertainment than water, vegetables, and fruit. 
Whatever may have been the amusements common among 
his wealthy and noble contemporaries, v/e know that he 
found his highest enjoyment in the innocent pleasures of 
his garden, and took some of his exercise by running races 
there with a little slave. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE STATE OF ROMAN SOCIETY. 

We have gleaned from Seneca's own writings what facts 
we could respecting his early education. But in the life of 
every man there are influences of a far more real and pene- 
trating character than those which come through the medi- 
um of schools or teachers. The spirit of the age; the gen- 
eral tone of thought, the prevalent habits of social inter- 
course, the political tendencies which were moulding the 
destiny of the nation, — these must have told, more insensi- 
bly indeed but more powerfully, on the mind of Seneca 
than even the lectures of Sotion and of Attains. And, if 
we have had reason to fear that there was much which was 
hollow in the fashionable education, we shall see that the 
general aspect of the society by which our young philoso- 
pher was surrounded from the cradle was yet more injuri- 
and deplorable. 

The darkness is deepest just before the dawn, and never 
did a grosser darkness or a thicker mist of moral pestilence 
brood over the surface of Pagan society than at the period 
when the Sun of Righteousness arose with healing in His 
wings. There have been many ages when the dense gloom 
of a heartless immorality seemed to settle down with un- 
usual weight ; there have been many places where, under 



36 SENECA. 

the gaslight of an artificial system, vice has seemed to ac- 
quire an unusual audacity ; but never probably was there 
any age or any place where the worst forms of wickedness 
were practiced with a more unblushing effrontery than in 
the city of Rome under the government of the Caesars. A 
deeply-seated corruption seemed to have fastened upon the 
very vitals of the national existence. It is surely a lesson 
of deep moral significance that just as they became most 
polished in their luxury they became most vile in their 
manner of life. Horace had already bewailed that " the 
age of our fathers, worse than that of our grandsires, has 
produced us who are yet baser, and who are doomed to 
give birth to a still more degraded offspring." But fifty 
years later it seemed to Juvenal that in his times the very 
final goal of iniquity had been attained, and he exclaims, in 
a burst of despair, that " posterity will add nothing to our 
immorality ; our descendents can but do and desire the 
same crimes as ourselves." He who would see but for a 
moment and afar off to what the Gentile world had sunk, 
at the very period when Christianity began to spread, may 
form some faint and shuddering conception from the pic- 
ture of it drawn in the Epistle to the Romans. 

We ought to realize this fact if we would judge of Seneca 
aright. Let us then glance at the condition of the society 
in the midst of which he lived. Happily we can but glance 
at it. The worst cannot be told. Crimes may be spoken 
of; but things monstrous and inhuman should for ever be 
concealed. We can but stand at the cavern's mouch, and 
cast a single ray of light into its dark depths. Were we 
to enter, our lamp would be quenched by the foul things 
which would cluster round it. 

In the age of Augustus began that " long slow agony," that 



STA TE OF ROMAN SOCIETY. 37 

melancholy process of a society gradually going to pieces 
under the dissolving influence of its o^vn vices which lasted 
almost without interruption till nothing was left for Rome 
except the fire and sword of barbaric invasions. She saw 
not only her glories but also her virtues " star by star ex- 
pire." The old heroism, the old beliefs, the old manUness 
and simplicity, were dead and gone ; they had been suc- 
ceeded by prostration and superstition by luxury and lust. 

' ' There is the moral of all human tales, 
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, 
First freedom, and then glory ; when that fails. 
Wealth, vice, corruption, — barbarism at last : 
And history, with all her volumes vast. 
Hath but one page ; 'tis better written here 
Where gorgeous tyranny hath thus amassed 
All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear. 
Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask," 

The mere elements of society at Rome during this period 
were very unpromising. It was a mixture of extremes. 
There was no middle class. At the head of it was an em- 
peror, often deified in his lifetime, and separated from even 
the noblest of the senators by a distance of immeasurable 
superiority. He, was, in the startling language of Gibbon, 
at once " a priest, an atheist, and a god."* Surrounding 
his person and forming his court were usually those of the 

* * * To the sound . 

Of fifes and drums they danced, or in the shade 
Sung Caesar great and terrible in war, 
Immortal Caesar ! ' Lo, a god ! a god ! 
He cleaves the yielding skies !' Csesar meanwhile 
Gathers the ocean pebbles, or the gnat 
Enraged pursues ; or at his lonely meal 



38 SENECA, 

nobility who were the most absolutely degraded by their 
vices their flatteries, or their abject subservience. But even 
tiiese men were not commonly the repositories of poUtical 
power. The people of the greatest influence were the 
freedmen of the emperors — men who had been slaves, 
Egyptians and Bithynians who had come to Rome with 
bored ears and mth chalk on their naked feet to show tha^t 
they were for sale, or who had bawled " sea-urchins all alive" 
in the Velabrum or the Saburra — ^who had acquired enor- 
mous wealth by means often the most unscrupulous and 
the most degraded, and whose insolence and baseness had 
kept pace with their rise to power. Such a man was the 
Felix. before whom St. Paul was tried, and such was his 
brother Pallas,* whose golden statue might have been seen 
among the household gods of the senator, afterwards the 
emperor, VitelUus. Another of them might often have 
been observed parading the streets between two consuls. 
Imagine an Edward II. endowed wdth absolute and un- 
questioned powers of tyranny, — imagine some pestilent 
Piers Gaveston, or Hugh de le Spenser exercising over 
nobles and people a hideous despotism of the back stairs, 
— and you have some faint picture of the government of 
Rome under some of the twelve Caesars. What the barber 



Starves a -wdde province ; tastes, dislikes, and flings 
To dogs and sycophants. 'A god ! a god !' 
The flowery shades and shrines obscene return." 

Dyer, Rtnm of Rome. 

* The pride of this man was such that he never deigned to speak a 
word in the presence of his own slaves, but only made knoA\-n his wishes 
by signs ! — Tacitus. 



STA TE OF ROMAN' SOCIETY. 39 

Olivier le Diable was under Louis XI., what Mesdames du 
Barri and Pompadour were under Louis XV , what the 
infamous Earl of Somerset was under James I., what 
George Villiers became under Charles L, will furnish us with 
a faint analogy of the far more exaggerated and detestable 
position held by the freedman Glabrio under Domitian, by 
the actor Tigellinus under Nero, by Pallus and Narcissus 
under Claudius, by the obscure knight Sejanus under the 
iron tyranny of the gloomy Tiberias. 

I. It was an age of the most enormous wealth existing 
side by side with the most abject poverty. Around the 
splendid palaces wandered hundreds of mendicants, who 
made of their mendicity a horrible trade, and even went so 
far as to steal or mutilate infants in order to move com- 
passion by their hideous maladies, jf This class was in- 
creased by the exposure of children, and by that over- 
grown accumulation of landed property which drove the 
poor from their native fields. It was increased also by the 
ambitious attempt of people whose means were moderate 
to imitate the enormous display of the numerous mil- 
lionaires. The great Roman conquests in the East, the 
plunder of the ancient kingdoms of Antiochus, of Attalus, 
of Mithridates, had caused a turbid stream of wealth to 
flow into the sober current of Roman life. One reads v/ith 
silent astonishment of the sums expended by wealthy 
Romans on their magnificence or their pleasures. And as 
commerce was considered derogatory to rank and position, 
and was therefore pursued by men who had no character 
to lose, these overgrown fortunes were often acquired by 
wretches of the meanest stamp — by slaves brought from 
over the sea, who had to conceal the holes bored in their 



40 SENECA. 

ears ;* or even by malefactors who had to obliterate, by 
artificial means, the three lettersf which had been branded 
by the executioner on their foreheads. But many of the 
richest men in Rome, who had not sprung from this convict 
origin, were fully as well deserving of the same disgraceful 
stigma. Their houses were built, their coffers were re- 
plenished, from the drained, resources of exhausted prov- 
incials. Every young man of active ambition or noble 
birth, whose resources had been impoverished by de- 
bauchery and extravagance, had but to borrow fresh sums 
in order to give magnificent gladiatorial shows, and then, if 
he could once obtain an sedileship, and mount to the 
higher offices of the State, he would in time become the 
procurator or proconsul of a province, which he might pil- 
lage almost at his will. Enter the house of a Felix or a 
Verres. Those splendid pillars of mottled green marble 
were dug by the forced labour of Phrygians from the quar- 
of Synnada ; that embossed silver, those murrhine vases, 
those jeweled cups, those masterpieces of antique sculp- 
ture, have all been torn from the homes or the temples of 
Sicily or Greece. Countries were pilaged and nations 
crushed that an Apicius might dissolve pearls:}: in the wine 
he drank, or that Lollia Paulina might gleam in a second-best 
dress of emeralds and pearls which had cost 40,000,000 
sesterces, or more than 3 2,000/. § 

* This was a common ancient practice ; the very words ' ' thrall, " 
" thralldom, " are etymologically connected with the roots "thrill," 
"trill," "drill," (Compare Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Plut. Cic. 26; 
and Juv. Sat. i. 104.) 

\Fur, "thief." fSee Martial, ii. 29.) 

X "Dissolved pearls, Apicius' diet 'gainst the epilepsy." — Ben Jon- 
SON. 

& Pliny actually saw her thus arrayed. (Nat. Hist. ix. 35, 36.; 



STATE OF ROMAX SOCIETY. 41 

Each of these " gorgeous criminals " lived in the midst 
of an humble crowd of flatterers, parasites, clients, de- 
pendents, and slaves. Among the throng that at early 
morning jostled each other in the marble atriimi were to 
be found a motley and hetrogeneous set of men. Slaves 
of every age and nation — Germans, Egyptians, Gauls, 
Goths, S}Tians, Britons, Moors, pampered and consequent- 
ial freedmen, impudent confidential servants, greedy buf- 
foons, who lived by making bad jokes at other people's 
tables ; Dacian gladiators, with whom fighting was a trade ; 
philosophers, whose chief claim to reputation was the length 
of their beards ; supple Greeklings of the Tartuffe species, 
ready to flatter and lie with consummate skill, and spread- 
ing their vile character like a pollution wherever the went : 
and among all these a number of poor but honest clients, 
forced quietly to put up with a thousand forms of con- 
tumely* and insult, and living in discontented idleness on 
the sportula or daily largesse which was administered by 
the grudging liberaUty of their haughty patrons. The stout 
old Roman burgher had well-nigh disappeared; the sturdy 
independence, the manly self-reliance of an industrial 
population were all but unknown. The insolent loungers 
who bawled in the Forum were often mere stepsons of 
Italy, who had been dragged thither in chains, — the dregs 
of all nations, which had flowed into .Rome as into a com- 
mon sewer, t bringing with them no heritage except the 

* Few of the many sad pictures in the Satires of Juvenal are more 
pitiable than that of the wretched "Quirites" struggling at their pa- 
trons' doors for the pittance which formed their daily dole. (Sat i. lOi.) 

t See Juv. Sat. iii. 62. Scipio, on being interrupted by the mob in 
the Forum, exclaimed, — "Silence, ye stepsons of Italy! What ! shall 
I fear these fellows now they are free, whom I myself have brought in 
phains to Rome? (See Cic. De Orat. ii. di.) 



42 SEX EC A. 

Specialty of their national vices. Their tAvo wants were 
bread and the shows of the circus; so long as the sp07'tula 
of their patron, the occasional donative of an emperor, and 
the ambition of jDolitical candidates supplied these wants, 
they lived in contented abasement, anxious neither for lib- 
erty nor for power, 

II. It was an age at once of atheism and superstition. 
Strange to say, the two things usually go together. Just as 
Philippe Egalite, Duke of Orleans, disbeheved in God, and 
yet tried to conjecture his fate from the inspection of 
coffee-grounds at the bottom of a cup, — ^just as Louis XI. 
shrank from no perjury and no crime, and yet retained a 
profound reverence for a little leaden image which he 
carried in his cap, — so the Romans under the Empire 
sneered at all the whole crowd of gods and goddesses 
whom their fathers had worshipped, but gave an implicit 
credence to sorcerers, astrologers, spirit-rappers, exorcists, 
and ever/ species of imposter and quack. The ceremonies 
of religion were performed \^dth ritualistic splendour, but 
all behef in rehgion was dead and gone. " That there are 
such thmgs as ghosts and subterranean realms not even 
boys believe," says Juvenal, " except those who are still 
too young to pay a farthing for a bath."* Nothing can ex- 
^ed the cool impertinence with which the poet ]\lartial 
prefers the favour of Domitian to that of the great Jupiter 
of the Capitol. Seneca, in his lost book " Against Super- 
stitions,"! openly sneered at the old mythological legends 
of gods married and gods ur\inarried, and at the gods Panic 

* Juv. Sat ii. 149. Cf. Sen. Ep. xxiv. '.' N-emo tain puer est at 
Cerberum timeat, et tenebras," &c. 

+ Fragm.. xxxiv. 



STaTM of ROMAN SOCIETY. 43 

and Paleness, and at Cloacina, the goddess of sewers, and 
at other deities whose cruelty and Hcense would have been 
infamous even in mankind. And yet the priests, and Salii, 
and Flamens, and Augurs continued to fulfil their solemn 
functions, and the highest title of the Emperor himself 
was that of Pontifex Maximus, or Chief Priest, which he 
claimed as the recognized head of the national religion. 
" The common worship was regarded," says Gibbon, " by 
the people as equally true, by the philosophers as equally! 
false, and by the magistrates as equally useful." And this 
famous remark is little more than a translation from Seneca, 
who, after exposing the futiHty of the popular beliefs, adds : 
" And yet the wise man will observe them all, not as pleas- 
ing to the gods, but as commanded by the laws. We shall 
so adore all that ignoble crowd of gods which long supersti- 
tion has heaped together in a long period of years, as to 
remember that their worship has more to do with custom 
than with reality." " Because he was an illustrious senator 
of the Roman people," observes St. Augustine, who has 
preserved for us this fragment, " he worshipped «vhat he 
blamed, he did what he refuted, he adored that with which 
he found fault." Could anything be more hollow or 
heartless than this ? Is there anything which is more cer- 
tain to sap the very foundations of moraHty than the public 
maintenance of a creed which has long ceased to command 
the assent, and even the respect of its recognized de- 
fenders? Seneca, indeed, and a few enlightened philoso- 
phers, might have taken refuge from the superstitions 
which they abandoned in a truer and purer form of faith. 
"Accordingly," says Lactantius, one of the Christian 
Fathers, " he has said many things like ourselves concern- 



44 



SENECA. 



ing God."* He utters what Tertullian finely calls "the 
testimony of a mind naturally Christian." But, mean- 
while, what became of the common multitude ? They too, 
like their superiors, learnt to disbeUeve or to question the 
power of the ancient deities ; but, as the mind absolutely 
requires sotne reHgion on which to rest, they gave their real 
devotion to all kinds of strange and foreign deities, — to Isis 
and Osiris, and the dog Anubus, to Chaldaean magicians, to 
Jewish exercisers, to Greek quacks, and to the wretched 
vagabond priests of Cybele, who infested all the streets with 
their Oriental dances and tinkling tambourines. The visi- 
tor to the ruins of Pompeii may still see in her temple the 
statue of Isis, through whose open Hps the gaping worship- 
pers heard the murmured answers they came to seek. No 
doubt they beUeved as firmly that the image spoke, as our 
forefathers believed that their miraculous Madonnas nodded 
and winked. But time has exposed the cheat. By the 
ruined shrine the worshipper may now see the secret steps 
by which the priest got to the back of the statue, and the 
pipe entering the back of its head through which he whis- 
pered the answers of the oracle. 

III. It was an age of boundless luxury, — an age in which 
women recklessly vied with one another in the race of 
splendour and extravagance, and in which men plunged 
headlong, without a single scruple of conscience, and with 
every possible resource at their command, into the pursuit 
of pleasure. There was no form of luxury, there was no 
refinement of vice invented by any foreign nation, which 
had not been eagerly adopted by the Roman patricians. 
" The softness of Sybaris, the manners of Rhodes and An- 
tioch, and of perfumed, drunken, flower-crowned Miletus," 

* Lactantius, Divin. Inst. i. 4, 



STA TE OF ROMAN SOCIETY. 45 

were all to be found at Rome. There was no more of the 
ancient Roman severity and dignity and self-respect. The 
descendants of ^milius and Gracchus — even generals and 
consuls and praetors — mixed famiharly with the lowest 
canaille of Rome in their vilest and most squalid purlieus 
of shameless vice. They fought as amateur gladiators in 
the arena. They drove as competing charioteers on the 
race-course. They even condescended to appear as actors 
on the stage. They devoted themselves with such frantic 
eagerness to the excitement of gambHng, that we read of 
their staking hundreds of pounds on a single throw of the 
dice, when they could not even restore the pawned tunics 
to their shivering slaves. Under the cold marble statues, 
or amid the waxen likenesses of their famous stately ances- 
tors, they turned night into day with long and foolish orgies, 
and exhausted land and sea with the demands of their glut- 
tony. " Woe to that city," says an ancient proverb, " in 
which a fish costs more than an ox ;" and this exactly de- 
scribes the state of Rome. A banquet would sometimes 
cost the price of an estate ; shell-fish were brought from re- 
mote and unknown shores, birds from Parthia and the banks 
of the Phasis j single dishes were made of the brains of the 
peacocks and the tongues of nightingales and flamingoes. 
Apicius, after squandering nearly a million of money in the 
pleasures of the table, committed suicide, Seneca tells us, 
because he found that he had only 80,000/. left. Cowley 
speaks of — 

" Vitellius' table, which did hold 
As many creatures as the ark of old. " 

"They eat," said Seneca, "and then they vomit; they 



46 SENECA. 

vomit, and then they eat." But even in this matter we 
cannot tell anything Hke the worst facts about — 

''Their sumptuous gluttonies and gorgeous feasts 
On citron tables and Atlantic stone, 
Their wines of Setia, Cales, and Falerne, 
Chios, and Crete, and how they quaff in gold, 
Crystal, and myrrhine cups, embossed with gems 
And studs of pearl. "* 

Still less can we pretend to describe the unblushing and 
unutterable degradation of this period as it is revealed to us 
by the poets and the satirists. *' All things," says Seneca, 
" are full of iniquity and vice ; more crime is committed 
than can be remedied by restraint. We struggle in a huge 
contest of criminality : daily the passion for sin is greater, 
the shame in committing it is less. . . . Wickedness is no 
longer committed in secret : it flaunts before our eyes, and 

" The citron board, the bowl embossed Avith gems, 
whate'er is known 
Of rarest acquisition ; Tyrian garbs, 
Neptunian Albion's high testaceous food, 
And flavoured Chian wines, with incense fumed. 
To slake patrician thirst : for these their rights 
In the vile atreets they prostitute for sale, 
Their ancient rights, their dignities, their laws, 
Their native glorious freedom. 

has been sent forth so openly into public sight, and has 
prevailed so completely in the breast of all, that innocence 
is not rare, but non-existent.''^ 

IV. And it was an age of deep sadness. That it should 
have been so is an instructive and solemn lesson. In pro- 
portion to the luxury of the age were its misery and its ex- 

. * Compare the lines in Dyer's little -remembered Ruins of Rome^-^ 



STA TE OF ROMAN SOCIETY. 



47 



haustioru The mad pursuit of pleasure was the death and 
degradation of all true happiness. Suicide — suicide out of 
pure e7inni and discontent at a life overflowing with every pos- 
sible means of indulgence — was extraordinarily prevalent 
The Stoic philosophy, especially as we see it represented in 
the tragedies attributed to Seneca, rang with the glorifici- 
tion of it. Men ran to death because their mode of life 
had left them no other refi:ige. They died because it 
seemed so tedious and so superfluous to be- seeing and 
doing and sa}ing the same things over and over again j and 
because they had exhausted the very possibility of the only 
pleasures of v.^hich they had left themselves capable. The 
satirical epigram of Destouches,— 

"Ci-git Jean Rosbif, ecuyer, 
Qui se pendit pour se desennuyer," 

was hterally and strictly true of many Romans during this 
epoch. Marcellinus, a young and wealthy noble, starved 
himself, and then had himself suffocated in a warm bath, 
merely because he was attacked with a perfectly curable 
illness. The philosophy which alone professed itself able 
to heal men's sorrows applauded the supposed courage of a 
voluntary death, and it was of too abstract, too fantastic, 
and too purely theoretical a character to furnish them with 
any real or lasting consolations. No sentiment caused 
more surprise to the Roman world than the famous one pre- 
served in the fragment of Maecenas, — 

" Debilem facito manu, 
Debilem pede, coxa, 
Tuber adstrue gibberum, 
Lubricos quate dentes; 



48 SENECA. 



Vita dum superest bene est; 

Hanc mihi vel acuta 
Si sedeam cruce sustine;" 



which may be paraphrased, — 

' * Numb my hands with palsy, 

Rack my feet with gout, 
Hunch my back and shoulder. 

Let my teeth fall out; 
Still, if Life be granted, 

I prefer the loss; 
Save my life, and give me 

Anguish on the cross." 

Seneca, in his loist Letter, calls this " a most disgraceful 
and most contemptible wishj" but it may be paralleled out J 
of Euripides, and still more closely out of Homer. " Talk 
not," says the shade of Achilles to Ulysses in the Odyssey, — 

" 'Talk not of reigning in this dolorous gloom, 

Nor think vain lies, ' he cried, * can ease my doon j 

Better by far laboriously to bear 1 

A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air. 
Slave to the meanest hind that begs his bread. 
Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead.'' " 

But this falsehood of extremes was one of the sad outcomes 
of the popular Paganism. Either, like the natural savage, 
they dreaded death with an intensity of terror; or, when 
their crimes and sorrows had made hfe unsupportable, they 
slank to it as a refuge, with a cowardice which vaunted 
itself as courage. 

V. And it was an age of cruelty. The shows of gladia- 
tors, the sanguinary combats of wild beasts, the not unfre- 
quent spectacle of savage tortures and capital punishments, 
the occasional sight of innocent martyrs burning to death 



STA TE OF ROMAN SOCIETY. 49 

in their shirts of pitchy fire, must have hardened and im- 
bruted the pubHc sensibihty. The immense prevalence of 
slavery tended still more inevitably to the general corrup- 
tion. " Lust," as usual, was "hard by hate." One hears 
with perfect amazement of the number of slaves in the 
wealthy houses. A thousand slaves was no extravagant 
number, and the vast majority of them were idle, unedu- 
cated and corrupt. Treated as little better than animals, 
they lost much of the dignity of men. Their masters pos- 
sessed over them the power of life and death, and it is 
shocking to 1 ead of the cruelty with which they were often 
treated. An ace. dental murmur, a cough, a sneeze, was 
punished with rods. Mute, motionless, fasting, the slaves 
had to stand by while their masters supped. A brutal and 
stupid barbarity often turned a house into the shambles of 
an executioner, sounding with scourges, chains, and yells.* 
One evening the Emperor Augustus was supping at the 
house of Vedius Pollio, when one of the slaves, who was 
carrying a crystal goblet, slipped down, and broke it. 
Transported with rage Vedius at once ordered the slave to 
be seized, and plunged into the fish-pond as food to the 
lampreys. The boy escaped from the hands of his fellow- 
slaves, and fled to Caesar's feet to inplore, not that his life 
should be spared — a pardon which he neither expected nor 
hoped — but that he might die by a mode of death less 
horrible than being devoured by fishes. Common as it was 
to torment slaves, and to put them to death, Augustus, 
to his honor be it spoken, was horrified by the cruelty of 
Vedius, and commanded both that the slave should be set 
free, that every crystal vase in the house of Vedius should 
be broken in his presence, and that the fish pond should be 
* Juv. Sat. vi. 219 — 222. 



50 SENECA. 

filled up. Even women inflicted upon their female slaves 
punishments of the most cruel atrocity for faults of the 
most venial character. A brooch wrongly placed, a tress 
of hair ill-arranged, and the enraged matron orders her 
slave to be lashed and crucified. If her milder husband 
interferes, she not only justifies the cruelty, but asks in 
amazement : "What! is a slave so much of a human being?" 
No wonder that there was a proverb, " As many slaves, so 
many foes." No wonder that many masters lived in per- 
petual fear, and that " the tyrant's deviUsh plea, necessity," 
might be urged in favor of that odious law which enacted 
that, if a master was murdered by an unknown hand, the 
whole body of his slaves should suffer death, — a law which 
more than once was carried into effect under the reigns of 
the Emperors. Slavery, as we see in the case of Sparta 
and many other nations, always involves its own retribution. 
The class of free peasant proprietors gradually disappears. 
Long before this time Tib. Gracchus, in coming home from 
Sardinia, had observed that there was scarcely a single 
freeman to be seen in the fields. The slaves were infinitely 
more numerous than their owners. Hence arose the con- 
stant dread of servile insurrections; the constant hatred of 
a slave population to which any conspirator revolutionist 
might successfully appeal ; and the constant insecurity of 
life, which must have struck terror into many hearts. 

Such is but a faint and broad outHne of some of the 
features of Seneca's age; and we shall be unjust if we do 
not admit that much at least of the fife he Hved, and nearly 
all the sentiments he uttered, gain much in grandeur and 
purity from the contrast they offer to the common life of— 

*' That people victor once, now vile and basfe, 
Deservedly made vassal, who, once just, 



STATE OF ROMAN SOCIETY %\ 

Frugal, and mild, and temperate, conquered well, 

But govern ill the nations under yoke, 

Peeling their provinces, exhausted all 

By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown 

Of triumph, that insulting vanity; 

Then cruel, by their sports to blood inured 

Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed. 

Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still. 

And from the daily scene effeminate. 

What wise and valient men would seek to free 

These thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved ; 

Or could of inward slaves make outward free?" 

Milton, Paradise Regained, iv. 132-145. 



CHAPTER IV. 



POLITICAL CONDITION OF ROME UNDER TIBERIUS AND CAIUS. 



The personal notices of Seneca's life up to the period of 
his manhood are slight and fragmentary. From an inci- 
dental expression we conjecture that he \dsited his aunt in 
Eg)^t when her husband was Prefect of that country, and 
that he shared with her the dangers of shipwreck when her 
husband had died on board ship during the homeward voy- 
age. Possibly the visit may have excited in his mind that 
deep interest and curiosity about the phenomena of the 
Nile which appear so strongly in several passages of his 
Natural Questiofis ; and, indeed nothing is more likely than 
that he suggested to Nero the earUest recorded expedition 
to discover the source of the mysterious river. No other 
allusion to his travels occur in his writings, but we may infer 
that from very early days he had felt an interest for physical 
inquiry, since while still a youth he- had written a book on 
earthquakes; which has not come down to us. 

Deterred by his father from the pursuit of philosophy, he 
entered on the duties of a profession. He became an advo- 
cate, and distinguished himself by his genius and eloquence 
in pleading causes. Entering on a pohtical career, he be- 



ROME UNDER TIBERIUS AND CAIUS. 53 

came a successful candidate for the qusestorship, which was 
an important step towards the highest offices of the state. 
During this period of his hfe he married a lady whose name 
has not been preserved to us, and to whom we have only 
one allusion, which is a curious one. As in our own history 
it has been sometimes the fashion for ladies of rank to have 
dwarves and negroes among their attendants, so it seems to 
have been the senseless and revolting custom of the Roman 
ladies of this time to keep idiots among the number of their 
servants. The first wife of Seneca had followed this fash- 
ion, and Seneca in his fiftieth letter to his friend Lucilius* 
makes the following interesting allusion to the fact. "You 
know," he says, "that my wife's idiot girl Harpaste has 
remained in my house as a burdensome legacy. For per- 
sonally I feel the profoundest dislike to monstrosities of 
that kind. If ever I want to amuse myself with an idiot, 
I have not far to look for one. I laugh at myself. This 
idiot girl has suddenly become blind. Now, incredible as 
the story seems, it is really true that she is unconscious of 
her blindness, and consequently begs her attendant to go 
elsewhere, because the house is dark. But you may be sure 
that this, at which we laugh in her, happens to us all; no one 
understands that he is avaricious or covetous. The blind 
seek for a guide; we wander about without a guide." 

* It will be observed that the main biographical facts about the life of 
Seneca are to be gleaned from his letters to LuciUus, who was his con- 
stant friend from youth to old age, and to whom he has dedicated his 
Natural Questions. Lucilius was a procurator of Sicily, a man of cul» 
tivated taste and high principle. He was the author of a poenl ori 
-^tna, which in the opinion of many competent judges is the pdem 
which has come down to us, and has been attributed to Varus, Virgil^ 
and others. It has been admirably edited by Mr. Munro. (See Nat^ 
QucBst. iv. ad init. Ep. Ixxix. ) He also wrote a poem on the fountain 
Arethusa. {^Nat Qu&st iii, 26.) 



54 SENECA. 

This passage mil furnish us with an excellent example of 
Seneca's invariable method of improving every occasion and 
circumstance into an opportunity for a philosophic har- 
angue. 

By this wife, who died shortly before Seneca's banish- 
ment to Corsica, he had two sons, one of whom expired in 
the arms and amid the kisses of Helvia less than a month 
before Seneca's departure for Corsica. To the other, whose 
name was Marcus, he makes the following pleasant allusion. 
After urging his mother Helvia to find consolation in the 
devotion of his brothers Gallio and Mela, he adds, "From 
these turn your eyes also on your grandsons — to Marcus, 
that most charming little boy, in sight of whom no melan- 
choly can last long. No misfortune in the breast of any 
one can have been so great or so recent as not to be 
soothed by his caresses. AVhose tears would not his mirth 
repress ? whose mind would not his prattling loose from the 
pressure of anxiety? whom will not that joyous manner of 
his incline to jesting? whose attention, even though he be 
fixed in thought, will not be attracted and absorbed by 
that childlike garrulity of which no one can grow tired? 
God grant that he may survive me : may all the cruelty of 
destiny be weared out on me I" 

Whether the prayer of Seneca w^as granted we do not 
know ; but, as we do not again hear of Marcus, it is pro- 
bable that he died before his father, and that the line of 
Seneca, like that of so many great nien, became extinct in 
the second generation. 

It was probably during this period that Seneca laid the 
foundations of that enormous fortune which excited the 
hatred and ridicule of his opponents. There is every reason 
to beheve that this fortune was honourably gained. As 



I 



ROME UNDER TIBERIUS AND CAIUS. 55 

both his father and mother were wealthy, he had doubtless 
inherited an ample competency ; this was increased by the 
lucrative profession of a successful advocate, and was finally 
swollen by the princely donations of his pupil Nero. It is 
not improbable that Seneca, like Cicero, and like all the 
wealthy men of their day, increased his property by lending 
money upon interest. No disgrace attached to such a 
course ; and as there is no proof for the charges of Dio Cas- 
sius on this head, we may pass them over with silent con- 
tempt. Dio gravely informs us that Seneca excited an in- 
surrection in Britain, by suddenly calling in the enormous 
sum of 40,000,000 sesterces; but this is in all probability 
the calumny of a professed enemy. We shall refer again 
to Seneca's wealth; but we may here admit that it was un- 
doubtedly ungraceful and incongruous in a philosopher who 
was perpetually dwelling on the pra:ses of poverty, and that 
even in his own age it attracted unfavourable notice, as we 
may see from the epithet Prcedives, '■ the over-v/ealthy," 
which is applied to him alike by a satiric poet and by a 
grave historian. Seneca was perfectly well aware that this 
objection could be urged against him, and it must be ad- 
mitted that the grounds on which he defends himself in his 
treatise On a Happy Life are not very conclusive or satis- 
factory. 

The boyhood of Seneca fell in the last years of the Em.- 
peror Augustus, when, in spite of the general decorum and 
amiability of their ruler, people began to see clearly that 
nothing was left of liberty except the name. His youth 
and early manhood were spent during those three-and- 
twenty years of the reign of Tiberius, that reign of terror, 
during which the Roman world was reduced to a frightful 



56 SENECA. 

silence and torpor as of death ;* and, although he was not 
thrown into personal collision with that "brutal monster," 
he not unfrequently alludes to him, and to the dangerous 
power and headlong ruin of his wicked minister Sejanus. 
Up to this time he had not experienced in nis own person 
those crimes and horrors which fall to the lot of men who 
are brought into close contact with tyrancs. This first hap- 
pened to him in the reign of Caius Caesar, of whom we are 
enabled, from the wTitings of Seneca alone, to draw a full- 
length portrait. 

Caius Caesar was the son of Germanicus and the elder 
Agrippina. Germanicus was the bravest and most success- 
ful general, and one of the wisest and most virtuous men, 
of his day. His wife Agrippina, in her fidehty, her chastity, 
her charity, her nobility of mind, was the very model of a 
Roman matron of the highest and purest stamp. Strange 
that the son of such parents should have been one of the 
vilest, crudest, and foulest of the human race. So, how- 
ever, it was ; and it is a remarkable fact that scarcely one 
of the six children of this marriage displayed the virtues of 
their father and mother, while two of them, Caius Caesar 
and the younger Agrippina, lived to earn an exceptional 
infamy by their baseness and their crimes. Possibly this 
unhappy result may have been partly due to the sad circum- 
stances of their early education. Their father, Germanicus, 
who by his virtue and his successes had excited the suspi- 
cious jealousy of his uncle Tiberius, was by his distinct con- 
nivance, if not by his actual suggestion, atrociously poisoned 
in Syria. Agrippina, after being subjected to countless 

* Milton, Paradise Regained, iv. 128. For a picture of Tiberius as 
he appeared in his old age at Capreas, "hated of all and hating," see 
Id. 90—97, 



ROME UNDER TIBERIUS AND CAlUS. 57 

cruel insults, was banished in the extremest poverty to the 
island of Pandataria. Two of the elder brothers, Nero and 
Drusus Germanicus, were proclaimed public enemies: 
Nero was banished to the island Pontia, and there put to 
death ; Drusus was kept a close prisoner in a secret prison 
of the palace. Caius, the youngest, who is better known 
by the name Caligula, was summoned by Tiberius to his 
wicked retirement at Capreae, and there only saved his life 
by the most abject flattery and the most adroit submission. 
Capreae is a little island of surpassing loveliness, forming 
one extremity of the Bay of Naples. Its soil is rich, its sea 
bright and limpid, its breezes cool and healthful. Isolated 
by its position, it is yet within easy reach of Rome. At 
that time, before Vesuvius had rekindled those wasteful 
fires which first shook down, and then deluged under lava 
and scoriae, the little cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, 
the scene which it commanded was even more pre-emi- 
nently beautiful than now. Vineyards and olive-groves 
clothed the sides of that matchless bay, down to the very 
line where the bright blue waters seem to kiss with their 
ripples the many-coloured pebbles of the beach. Over all, 
with its sides dotted with picturesque villas and happy vil- 
lages, towered the giant cone of the volcano which for cen- 
turies had appeared to be extinct, and which was clothed 
up to the very crater with luxurious vegetation. Such was 
the delicious home which Tiberius disgraced for ever by 
the seclusion of his old age. Here he abandoned himself 
to every refinement of wickedness, and from hence, being 
by common consent the most miserable of men, he wrote 
to the Senate that memorable letter in which he confesses 
his daily and unutterable misery under the stings of a guilty 



58 SENECA. 

conscience, which neither soHtude nor power enabled him 
to escape. 

Never did a fairer scene undergo a worse degradation ; 
and here, in one or other of the twelve villas which Tiberi- 
us had built, and among the azure grottoes which he caused 
to be constructed, the youthful Caius* grew up to manhood. 
It would have been a terrible school even for a noble 
nature ; for a nature corrupt and bloodthirsty like that of 
Caius it was complete and total ruin. But, though he was 
so obsequious to the Emperor as to originate the jest that 
never had there been a worse master and never a more 
cringing slave, — though he suppressed every sign of indig- 
nation at the horrid deaths of his mother and his brothers, 
— though he assiduously reflected the looks, and carefully 
echoed the very words, of his patron, — yet not even by the 
deep dissimulation which such a position required did he 
succeed in conceaHng from the penetrating eye of Tiberius 
the true ferocity of his character. Not being the acknow- 
ledged heir to the kingdom, — for Tiberius Gemellus, the 
youthful grandson of Tiberius, was living, and Caius was by 
birth only his grand-nephew,— he became a tool for the 
machinations of Marco the praetorian prsefect and his wife 
Ennia. One of his chief friends was the cruel Herod Ag- 
rippa,f who put to death St. James and imprisoned St. 

*We shall call him Caius, because it is as little correct to write of 
him by the sobriquet Caligula as it would be habitually to write of our 
kings Edward or John as Longshanks or Lackland. The name Cali- 
gula means "a little shoe," and was the pet name given to him by the 
soldiers of his father, in whose camp he was born. 

tjosephus adds some curious and interesting particulars to the story 
of this Herod and his death which are not mentioned in the narrative 
of St. Luke {Antiq. xix. 7, 8. Jahn, Hebr. Commonwealth, § cxxvi.j 



\ 



ROME UXDER TIBERIUS AND C AIL'S. 59 

Peter, and whose tragical fate is recorded in the 12th chap, 
of the Acts. On one occasion, when Caius had been abus- 
ing the dictator Sulla, Tiberius scornfully remarked that he 
would have all Sulla's vices and none of his virtues ; and 
on another, after a quarrel between Caius and his cousin, 
the Emperor embraced wdth tears his young grandson, and 
ra'd to the frowning Caius, with one of those strange flashes 
of prevision of which we sometimes read in history. " Why 
are you so eager ? Some day you will kill this boy, and 
some one else will murder you." There were some who 
believed that Tiberius deliberately cherished the intention 
of allowing Caius to succeed him, in order that the Roman 
world might relent towards his own memory under the 
t}Tanny of a worse monster than himself. Even the Romans, 
who looked up to the family of Germanicus with ex- 
traordinary affection, seem early to have lost all hopes about 
Caius. They looked for little improvement under the gov- 
ernment of a vicious boy, "ignorant of all things, or nurt- 
ured only in the worst," who would be likely to reflect the 
influence of Macro, and present the spectacle of a worse 
Tiberius under a worse Sejanus. 

At last health and strength failed Tiberius, but not his 
habitual dissimulation. He retained the same unbending 
soul, and by his fixed countenance and measured language, 
sometimes by an artificial affability, he tried to conceal his 
approaching end. After many restless changes, he finally 
settled down in a villa at Misenum which had once be- 
longed to the luxurious Lucullus. There the real state of 
his health was discovered. Charicles, a distinguished phy- 
sician, who had been paying h!m a friendly visit on kissing 
his hand to bid farewell, managed to azcertain the state of 
his pulse. Suspecting that this was the case Tiberius, con- 



6o SENECA. 

cealing his displeasure, ordered a banquet to be spread, as 
though in honour of his friend's departure, and stayed 
longer than usual at table. A similar story is told of Louis 
XIV who, noticing from the whispers of his courtiers that 
they beheved him to be dying, ate an unusually large din- 
ner on the very day of his death, and sarcastically observed, 
"lime semble que pour un homme qui va mourir je ne 
mange pas mal." But, in spite of the precautions of Tibe- 
rius, Charicles informed Macro that the Emperor could not 
last beyond two days. 

A scene of secret intrigue at once began. The court 
b:oke up into knots and cliques. Hasty messengers were 
sent to the provinces and their armies, until at last, on the 
1 6 th of March, it was beheved that Tiberius had breathed 
his last. Just as on the death of Louis XV. a sudden 
noise was heard as of thunder, the sound of courtiers rush- 
ing along the corridors to congratulate Louis XVL in the 
famous words, "Le roi est mort, vive le roi," so a crowd in- 
stantly thronged round Caius with their congratulations, as 
he went out of the palace to assume his imperial authority. 
Suddenly a message reached him that Tiberius had recov- 
ered voice and sight. Seneca says, that feeUng his last 
hour to be near, he had taken off his ring, and, holding it 
in his shut left hand, had long lain motionless ; then calling 
his servants, since no one answered his call, he rose from 
his couch, and, his strength failing him, after a few totter- 
ing steps fell prostrate on the ground. 

The news produced the same consternation as that which 
was produced among the conspirators at Adonijah's ban- 
quet, when they heard of the measures taken by the dying 
David. There was a panic-stricken dispersion, and every 
one pretended to be grieved, or ignorant of what was goin^ 



) 



ROME UXDER TIBERIUS AXD CAIUS. 6i 

on. Caius, in stupified silence, expected death instead of 
empire. Macro alone did not lose his presence of mind. 
With the utmost intrepidity, he gave orders that the old 
man should be suffocated by heaping over him a mass of 
clothes, and that every one should then leave the chamber. 
Such was the miserable and unpitied end of the Emperor 
Tiberius, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. Such was 
the death, and so miserable had been the Hfe, of the man to 
whom the Tempter had already given "the kingdoms of 
the world and the glory of them." when he tried to tempt 
with them the Son of God. That this man should have 
been the chief Emperor of the earth at a time when its true 
King was li\dng as a peasant in his village home at Naz- 
areth, is a fact suggestive of many and of solemn thoughts. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE REIGN OF CAIUS. 

The poet Gray, in describing the deserted deathbed of our 
own great Edward III., says: — 

" Low on his funeral couch he lies ! 

No pitying heart, no eye afford 

A tear to grace his obsequies ! 

***** 

The swarm that in the noontide beam were born ? 

Gone to salute the rising Morn. 

Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows. 

While proudly riding o'er the azure realm, 

In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes ; 
■ Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm ; 

Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway. 
That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey." 

The last lines of this passage would alone have been ap- 
plicable to Caius Caesar. There v/as nothing fair or gay 
even about the beginning of his reign. From first to last 
it was a reign of fury and madness, and lust and blood. 
There was an hereditary taint of insanity in this family, 
which was developed by their being placed on the dizzy 
pinnacle of imperial despotism, and which usually took the 
form of monstrous and abnormal crime. If we would seek 



The reigjV oe caIus. 63 

a parallel for Caius Caesar, we must look for it in the his- 
tory of Christian VII. of Denmark, and Paul of Russia. 
In all three we find the same ghastly pallor, the same sleep- 
lessness which compelled them to rise, and pace their 
rooms at night, the same incessant suspicion; the same in- 
ordinate thirst for cruelty and torture. He took a very 
early opportunity to disembarrass himself of his benefac- 
tors. Macro and Ennia, and of his rival, the young Tiberius. 
The rest of his reign was a series of brutal extravagances. 
We have lost the portion of those matchless Annals of 
Tacitus which contained the reign of Caius, but more than 
enough to revolt and horrify is preserved in the scattered 
notices of Seneca, and in the narratives of Suetonius in 
Latin and Dio Cassius in Greek. 

His madness showed itself sometimes in gluttonous ex- 
travagance, as when he ordered a supper which cost more 
than 8,000/ j sometimes in a bizarre and disgraceful mode 
of dress, as when he appeared in public in women's stock- 
ings, embroidered with gold and pearls ; sometimes in a 
personality and insolence of demeanor towards every rank 
and class in Rome, which made him ask a senator to 
supper, and ply him with drunken toasts, on the very 
evening on which he had condemned his son to death ; 
sometimes in sheer raving blasphemy, as when he expressed 
his furious indignation against Jupiter for presuming to 
thunder while he was supping, or looking at the panto- 
mimes ; but most of all in a ferocity which makes Seneca 
apply to him the name of " Bellua," or " wild monster," 
and say that he seems to have been produced "for the dis- 
grace and destruction of the human race." 

We will quote from the pages of Seneca but one single 
passage to justify his remark " that he was most greedy for 



64 . SENECA. 

human blood, which he ordered to stream in his very pres- 
ence with such eagerness as though he were going to 
drink it up with his Hps." He says that in one day he 
scourged and tortured men of consular and quaestorial par- 
entage, knights and senators, not by way of examination, 
but out of pure caprice and rage; he seriously meditated 
the butchery of the entire senate ; he expressed a wish that 
the Roman people had but a single neck, that he might 
strike it off at one blow; he silenced the screams or re- 
proaches of his victims sometimes by thrusting a sponge in 
their mouths, sometimes by having their mouths gagged 
with their own torn robes, sometimes by ordering their 
tongues to be cut out before they were thrown to the wild 
beasts. On one occasion, rising from a banquet, he called 
for his slippers, which were kept by the slaves while the 
guests reclined on the purple couches, and so impatient 
was he for the sight of death, that, walking up and down 
his covered portico by lamplight with ladies and senators, 
he then and there ordered some of his wretched victims to 
be beheaded in his sight. 

It is a singular proof of the unutterable dread and detest- 
ation inspired by some of these Caesars, that their mere 
countenance is said to have inspired anguish. Tacitus, in 
the hfe of his father-in-law Agricola, mentions the shudder- 
ing recollection of the red face of Domitian, as it looked on 
at the games. Seneca speaks in one place of wretches 
doomed to undergo stones, sword, -fire, and Caius; in 
another he says that he had tortured the noblest Romans 
with everything which could possibly cause the intensest 
agony, — with cords, plates, rack, fire, and, as though it 
were the worst torture of all, with his look ! What that 
look was, we learn from Seneca himself, " His face was 



THE REIGX OF CAIUS. 65 

ghastly pale, \vith a look of insanity; his fierce, dull eyes 
were half-hidden under a wrinkled brow; his ill-shaped head 
was partly bald, partly covered with dyed-hair ; his neck 
covered wdth bristles, his legs thin, and his feet mis-shapen." 
Vv'oe to the nation that lies under the heel of a brutal des- 
potism ; treble woe to the nation that can tolerate a despot 
so brutal as this ! Yet this was the nation in the midst of 
which Seneca lived, and this was the despot under whom 
his early manhood was spent. 

'* But what more oft in nations grown corrupt, 
And by their vices brought to servitude, 
Than to love bondage more than liberty, 
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty?" 

It was one of the pecuUarities of Caius Caesar that he 
hated the very existence of any excellence. He used to 
bully and insult the gods themselves, frowning even at the 
statues of Apollo and Jupiter of the Capitol. He thought 
of abohshing Homer, and order the works of Livy and 
Yirg:l to be removed from all libraries, because he could 
not bear that they should be praised. He ordered JuHus 
Graecinus to be put to death for no other reason than this, 
" That he was a better man than it was expedient for a ty- 
rant that any one should be ;" for, as PHny tells us, the 
Caesars deliberately preferred that their people should be 
vicious than that they should be virtuous. It was hardly 
likely that such a man should view \\dth equanimity the 
rising splendour of Seneca's reputation. Hitherto, the 
young man, who was thirty-five years old at the accession 
of Caius, had not written any of his philosophic works, but 
in all probability he had published his early, and no longer 
extant, treatises pn earthquakes^ on superstitions, and tlie 



66 SENECA, 

books On India^ and On the Manjiers of Egypt, which had 
been the fruit of his early travels. It is probable, too, that 
he had recited in pubHc some of those tragedies which have 
come down to us under his name, and in the composition 
of which he was certainly concerned. All these works, and 
especially the applause won by the public reading of his 
poems, would have given him that high literary reputation 
which we know him to have earned. It was not, however, 
this reputation, but the brilliancy and eloquence of his ora- 
tions at the bar which excited the jealous hatred of the 
Emperor. Caius piqued himself on the possession of elo- 
quence ; and, strange to say, there are isolated expressions 
of his which seem to show that, in lucid intervals, he was 
by no means devoid of intellectual acuteness. For in- 
stance, there is real humour and insight in the nicknames 
of " a golden sheep " which he gave to the rich and placid 
Silanus, and of "Ulysses in petticoats," by which he desig- 
nated his grandmother, the august Livia. The two epi- 
grammetic criticisms which he passed upon the style of 
Seneca are not wholly devoid of truth ; he called his works 
Co7nmissiones meras, or mere displays.* In this expression 
he hit off, happily enough, the somewhat theatrical, the 
slightly pedantic and pedagogic and professorial character of 
Seneca's diction, its rhetorical ornament and and antitheses, 
and its deficiency in stern masculine simplicity and 
strength. In another remark he showed himself a still 
more felicitous critic. He called Seneca's writings Arenv 
sine Cake, "sand without lime," or, as we might say, " a 
rope of sand." This epigram showed a real critical faculty. 
It exactly hits off Seneca's short and disjointed sentences, 
consisting as they often do of detached antitheses. It 

Su?t, Calig. liii. 



THE REIGN OF CAIUS. 67 

accords with the amusing comparison of Malebranche, that 
Seneca's composition, with its perpetual and futile recur- 
rences, calls up to him the image of a dancer who ends 
where he begins. 

But Caius did not confine himself to clever and malignant 
criticism. On one occasion, when Seneca was pleading in 
his presence, he was so jealous aad displeased at the bril- 
liancy and power of the orator that he marked him out for 
immediate execution. Had Seneca died at this period he 
would probably have been little known, and he might have 
left few traces of his existence beyond a few tragedies of 
uncertain authenticity, and possibly a passing notice in the 
page of Dio or Tacitus. But destiny reserved him for a 
more splendid and more questionable career. One of 
Caius's favourites whispered to the Emperor that it was use- 
less to extinguish a waning lamp ; that the health of the 
orator was so feeble that a natural death by the progress of 
his consumptive tendencies would, in a very short time, re- 
move him out of the tyrant's way. 

Throughout the remainder of the few years during which 
the reign of Caius continued, Seneca, warned in time, with- 
drew himself into complete obscurity, employing his en- 
forced leisure in that unbroken industry which stored his 
mind with such encyclopaedic wealth. " None of my days," 
he rays, in describing at a later period the way in which he 
spent his time, " is passed in complete ease. I claim even 
a part of the night for my studies. I do n.olJind leisiwe for 
sleep, but I succumb to it, and I keep my eyes at their work 
even when they are wearied and drooping with watchful- 
ness. I have retired, not only from men, but from affairs, 
and especially from my own. I am doing the work for 
posterity; I am writing out things which may prove of 
3 



68 SEX EC A. 

advantage to them. I am intrusting to %vriting health- 
ful admonitions — compositions, as it were, of useful medi- 
Cxi^es, 

But the days of Caius drew rapidly to an end. His gross 
and unheard-of insults to Valerius Asiaticus and Cass! us 
Chaereas brought on him condign vengeance. It is an ad- 
ditional proof, if proof were v/anting, of the degradation of 
Imperial Rome, that the deed of retribution was due, not 
to the people whom he taxed ; not to the soldiers, whole 
regiments of whom he had threatened to decimate ; not to 
the knights, of whom scores had been put to death by his 
orders ; not to the nobles, multitudes of whom had been 
treated by him with conspicuous infamy ; not even to the 
Senate, vvhich illustrious body he had on all occasions de- 
liberately treated with contumely and hatred, — but to the 
private revenge of an insulted soldier. The weak thin vo:ce 
of Cassius Choreas, tribune of the praetorian cohort, iiad 
marked him out for the coarse and calumnious banter of 
the imperial buffoon ; and he determined to avenge himself, 
and at the same time rid the world of a monster. He en- 
gaged several accomplices in the conspiracy, which was 
nearly frr.strated by their want of resolution. For four 
whole days they hesitated, while day after day, Caius pre- 
sided in person at the bloody games of the amphitheatre. 
On the fifth day (Jan. 24, a. d. 41), feeling unwell after 
one of his gluttonous suppers, he was indisposed to return 
to the shows, but at last rose to do so at the solicitation 
of his attendants. A vaulted corridor led from the palace 
to the c'rcus. and in that corridor Caius met a body of 
noble Asiat'c boys, who vrere to dance a Pyrrhic dance and 
sing a laudatory ode upon the stage. Caius wished them 
at once to practice a leheasrsal in his presence, but their 



THE REIGX OF CAIUS. 69 

leader excused himself oa the grounds of hoarseness. At 
this moment Chaereas asked him for the watchword of the 
night. He gave the watchword, ''Jupiter." "Receive 
him in his wrath !" excaimed Chaereas, striking him on the 
throat, while almost at the same moment the blow of 
Sabinus cleft the tyrant's jaw, and brought him to his knee, 
He crouched his limbs together to Fcreen himself from 
further blows, screaming aloud, " I l>e ! I live !" The 
bearers of his Htter rushed to his assistance, and fought 
with their poles, but Caius fell pierced with thirty wounds ; 
and, leaving the body weltering in its blood, the conspira- 
tors rushed out of the palace, and took measures to concert 
with the Senate a restoration of the old Republic. On the 
very night after the murder the consuls gave to Chsereas the 
long-forgotten watchword of "Liberty." But this little 
gleam of hope proved delusive to the last degree. It was 
believed that the unquiet ghost of the murdered madman 
haunted the palace, and long before it had been laid to 
rest by the forms of decent sepulchre, a new emperor of the 
great Julian family was securely seated upon the throne. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE REIGN OF CLAUDIUS, AND THE BANISHMENT OF SENECA. 

While the senators were deliberating, the soldiers were act- 
ing. They felt a true, though degraded, i.istinct that to re- 
store the ancient forms of democratic freedom would be 
alike impossible and useless, and with them the only ques- 
tion lay between the rival claimants for the vacait power. 
Strange to say that, among these claimants, no one seems 
ever to have thought of mentioning the prince who became 
the actual successor. 

There was living in the palace at th!s time a brother of 
the great Germaiiicus, and consequently an .uncle of the 
late emperor, whose name was Claudius Csesar. Weakened 
both in mind and body by the continuous maladies of an 
orphaned infancy, kept under the cruel tyranny of a bar- 
barous slav^e, the unhappy youth had lived in despised ob- 
scurity among the members of a family who were utterly 
ashamed of him. His mother Antonia called him a mon- 
strosity, which Nature had begun but never finished ; and 
it became a proverbial expression with her, as is said to 
have been the case with the mo^^r of the great Wellington, 
to say of a dull person, "that he was a greater fool than her 
son Claudius." His grandmother Livia rarely deigned to 
address him except in the briefest and bitterest terms. His 



THE REIGX OF GLA UDIUS. 71 

sister Livilla execrated the mere notion of his ever becom- 
ing emperor. Augustus, h!s grandfatlier by adoption, took 
pains to keep him as much out of sight as possible, as a 
wool-gathering* and discreditable member of the family, 
denied him all public honours, and left him a most paltry 
legacy. Tiberius, when looking out for a successor, delib- 
erately passed him over as a man of deficient intellect. 
Caius kept him as a butt for his own slaps and blows, and 
for the low buffoonery of his meanest jesters. If the un- 
happy Claudius came late for dinner, he would find every 
place occupied, and peer about disconsolately amid insult- 
ing smiles. If, as was his usual custom, he dropped asleep 
after a meal, he was pelted with olives and date-stones, or 
rough stockings were drawn over his hands that he might 
be seen rubbing his face with them when he was suddenly 
awaked. 

This was the unhappy being who was now summoned to 
support the falling weight of empire. ^Vhile rummaging 
the palace for plunder, a common soldier had spied a pair 
of feet protruding from under the curtains which shaded the 
sides of an upper corridor. Seizing these feet, and inquir- 
ing who owned them, he dragged out an uncouth, panic- 
stricken mortal, who immediately prostrated himself at his 
knees and begged hard for mercy. It was Claudius, who 
scared out of his wits by the tragedy which he had just be- 
held, had thus tried to conceal himself until the storm was 
parsed. ''Why, this is Germanicus!"| exclaimed the 
soldier, "let's make him emperor." Half joking and half 

*He calls him jj.sreGopo'i, which implies awkwardness and constant 
absence of mind. 

tThe fall name of Claudius was Tiberius Claudius Drusus Ci-esar 
Germanicus. 



72 SENECA. 

in earnest, they hoisted him on their shoulders — for terror 
had deprived him of the use of his legs — and hunied him 
oit to the camp of the Prstorians Miserable and anxious 
he reached the camp, an object of compassion to the crowd 
of pass:ers-by, who beheved that he was being hurried off to 
execution. But the "soldiers, who well knew their own in- 
terests, accepted him with acclamations, the more so as, by 
a fatal precedent, he promised them a largess of more than 
8c/. apiece. The supple Agrippa (the Herod of Acts xii.), 
seeing how the wind lay, o5fered to plead his cause with the 
Senate, and succeeded partly by arguments, partly by in- 
timidation, and partly by holding out the not unreasonable 
hopes of a great improvement on the previous reign. 

For although Claudius had. been accused of gambling 
and drunkenness, not only were no worse sins laid to his 
charge, but he had successfully established some claim to 
being considered a learned man. Had fortune blessed him 
till death with a private station, he might have been the 
Lucien Bonaparte of his family — a studious prince, who pre- 
ferred the charms of Hterature to the turmoil of ambition. 
The anecdotes which have been recorded of him show that 
he was something of an archaeologist, and something of a 
philologian. The great historian Livy, pitying the neglect 
with which the poor young man was treated, had encour- 
aged him in the study of history; and he had written 
memoirs of his own time, memoirs of Augustus, and even a 
history of the civil wars since the battle of Actium, which 
was so correct and so candid that his family indignantly 
suppressed it as a fresh proof of his stupidity. 

Such was the man who, at the age of fifty, became mas- 
ter of the civilized world. He offers some singular points 
of resemblance to our own " most mighty and dread sover- 



THE KEIGX OF CLA UDIUS. 73 

eign," King James I. Both were learned, and both were 
eminently unwise ;* both of them were authors, and both 
of them were pedants ; both of them delegated their highest 
powers to worthless favourites, and both of them enriched 
these favourites w^ith such foolish liberality that they re- 
mained poor themselves. Both of them had been terrified 
into constitutional cowardice by their involuntary presence 
at deeds of blood. Both of them, though of naturally good 
dispositions, were misled by selfishness into acts of cruelty; 
and both of them, though laborious in the discharge of 
duty,, succeeded only in rendering royalty ridiculous. King 
James kept Sir "Walter Raleigh in prison, and Claudius 
drove Seneca into exile. The parallel, so far as I am 
aware, has never been noticed, but is susceptible of being 
drawn out into the minutest particulars. 

One of his first acts was to recall his nieces, JuUa and 
Agrippina, from the exile into which their brother had 
driven them ; and both these princesses were destined to 
effect a powerful influence on the life of our philosopher. 

What part Seneca had taken during the few troubled 
days after the murder of Caius we do not know. Had he 
taken a leading part — had he been one of those who, like 
Chaereas, opposed the election of Claudius as being merely 
the substitution of an imbecile for a lunatic, — or who, like 
Sabinus, refused to survive the accession of another Csssar, 
• — ^we should perhaps have heard of it j and we must there- 
fore assume either that he was still absent from Rome in 
the retirement into which he had been driven by the jeal- 
ousy of Caius, or that he contented himself with quietly 

* "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers," says our o^s^x poet. Her- 
aclitus had said the same thing more than two thousand yezx?, before 
him, TteXx-ua^ir} ov didddxco. 



74 SEN EC A. 

watching the courre of events. It wiU be observed that his 
biography is not like that of Cicero, with whose Ufe we are 
acquainted in most trifling details; but that the curtain 
rises and falls on isolated scenes, throwing into sudden bril- 
liancy or into the deepest shade long and important periods 
of his history. Nor are liis letters and other writings full of 
those political and personal allusions which convert them 
into an autobiography. They are, without exception, oc- 
cupied exclusively with philosophical questions, or else they 
only refer to such personal reminiscences as may best be 
converted into the text for some Stoical paradox or moral 
declamation. It is, however, certain from the sequel that 
Seneca must have seized the opportunity of Caius's death to 
emerge from his politic obscurity, and to occupy a con- 
spicuous and brilliant position in the imperial court. 

It would have been well for his own happiness and fame 
if he had adopted the wiser and manHer course of acting up 
to the doctrines he professed. A court at most periods is, 
as the poet says, 

' ' A golden but a fatal circle, 
Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils 
In crystal forms sit tempting Innocence, 
And beckon early Virtue from its centre;" 

but the court of a Caius, of a Claudius, or of a Nero, was 
indeed a place wherein few of the wise could find a footing, 
and still fewer of the good. And all that Seneca gained 
from his career of ambition was to be suspected by the first 
of these Emperors, banished by the second, and murdered 
by the third. 

The first few acts of Claudius showed a sensible and 
kindly disposition ; but it soon became fatally obvious that 
the real powers of the government would be wielded, not 



THE REIGX OF CLAUDIUS. 75 

by the timid and absent-minded Emperor, but by any one 
who for the time being could acquire an ascendency over 
his well-intentioned but feeble disposition. Now, the 
friends and confidents of Claudius had long been chosen 
from the ranks of his freedmen. As under Louis XI. and 
Don Miguel, the barbers of these monarchs were the real 
governors, so Claudms was but the minister rather than the 
master of Narcissus his private secretary, of Polybius his 
literary ad\dser, and of Pallas his accountant. A third per- 
son, with whose name Scripture has made us familiar, was 
a freedman of Claudius. This was Felix, the brother of 
Pallas, and that Procurator who, though he had been the 
husband or the paramour of three queens, trembled before 
the simple eloquence of a feeble and imprisoned Jew.* 
These men became proverbial for their insolence and 
wealth ; and once, when Claudius was complaining of his 
own poverty, some one wittily replied, " that he would have 
abundance if two of his freedmen would but admit him into 
partnership with them." 

But these men gained additional power from the coun- 
tenance and intrigues of the young and beautiful wife of 
Claudius, Valeria Messalina. In his marriage, as in all 
else, Claudius had been pre-eminent in misfortune. He 
lived in an age of which the most frightful sign of depravity 
was that its women were, if possible, a shade worse than its 
men ; and it was the misery of Claudius, as it finally proved 
his ruin, to have been united by marriage to the very worst 
among them all. Princesses like the Berenice, and the 
Drusilla, and the Salome, and the Herodias of the sacred 
historians were in this age a familiar spectacle ; but none of 
them were so wicked as two at least of Claudius's wives. 
* Acts xix. 



76 SENECA. 

He was betrothed or married no less than five times. The 
lady first destined for his bride had been repudiated be- 
cause her parents had offended Augustus ; the next died on 
the very day intended for her nuptials. By his first actual 
wife, Urgulania, whom he had married in early youth, he 
had two children, Drusus and Claudia; Drusus was acci- 
dentally choked in boyhood while trying to S7/allow a pear 
vvhich had been thrown up into the air. Very shortly after 
the birth of Claudia, discovering the unfaithfulness of Ur- 
gulania, Claudius divorced her, and ordered the child to be 
stripped naked and exposed to die. His second wife, ^lia 
Petina, seems to have been an unsuitable person, and her 
also he divorced. His third and fourth wives lived to earn 
a colossal infamy — Valeria Messalina for her shameless 
character, Agrippina the younger for her unscrupulous am- 
bition 

Messalina, when she married, could scarcely have been 
fifteen years old, yet she at once assumed a dominant posi- 
tion, and secured it by means of the most unblushing wick- 
edness. 

But she did not reign so absolutely undisturbed as to be 
witho'jt her own jealousies and apprehensions ; and these 
were mainly kindled by Julia and Agrippina, the two nieces 
of the Emperor. They were, no less than herself, beautiful, 
brilliant, and evil-hearted women, quite ready to make their 
own coteries, and to dispute, as far as they dared, the sup- 
remacy of a bold but reckless rival. They too, used their 
arts, their wealth, their rank, their political influence, their 
perr.onal fascinations, to secure for themselves a band of 
adherents, ready, when the proper moment arrived, for any 
conspiracy. It is unhkely that, even in the first flush of her 
hLisband's strange and unexpected triumph, MessaHna 



THE REIGX OF CLAUDIUS. 77 

should have contemplated with any satisfaction their return 
from exile. In this respect it is probable that the Emperor 
succeeded in resisting her expressed wishes ; so that the 
mere appearance of the two daughters of Germ.anicus in her 
presence was a standing witness of the limitations to which 
her influence was subjected. 

At this period, as is usual among degraded peoples, the 
history of tlie Romans degenerates into mere anecdotes of 
their rulers. Happily, however, it is not our duty to enter 
on the chronique scandaleuse of plots and counterplots, as 
little tolerable to contemplate as the factions of the court 
of France in the worst periods of its history. We can only 
ask what possible part a philosopher could play at such a 
court ? We can only say that his position there is not to the 
credit of his philosophical professions ; and that we can 
contemplate his presence there with as little satisfaction as 
we look on the figure of the worldly and frivolous bishop in 
Mr. Frith' s picture of " The Last Sunday of Charles 11. at 
Whitehall." 

And such inconsistencies involve their own retribution, 
not only in loss of influence and fair fame, but even in 
direct consequences. It was so with Seneca. Circum- 
stances — possibly a genuine detestation of Messalina's ex- 
ceptional infamy — seem to have thrown him among the 
partisans of her rivals. Messalina was only waiting her op- 
portunity to strike a blow. Julia, possibly as being the 
younger and the less powerful of the two sisters, was marked 
out as the first victim, and the opportunity seemed a favour- 
able one for involving Seneca in her ruin. His enormous 
wealth, his. high reputation, his splendid abilities, made him 
a formidable opponent to the Empress, and a valuable ally 
to her rivals. It was determined to get rid of both by a 



78 S EXEC A. 

single scheme. Julia was accused of an intrigue with 
Seneca, and was first driven into exile and then put to 
death. Seneca was banished to the barren and pestilential 
shores of the island of Corsica. 

Seneca, as one of the most enHghtened. men of his age, 
should have aimed at a character which would have been 
above the possibihty of suspicion : but we must remember 
that charges such as those which were brought against him 
were the easiest of all to make, and the most impossible to 
refute. When we consider who were Seneca's accusers, we 
are not forced to beUeve his guilt ; his character was indeed 
deplorably weak, and the laxity of the age in such matters 
was fearfully demoralising ; but there are sufficient circum- 
stances in his favour to justify us in returning a veidict of 
" Not guilty." Unless we attach an unfair importance to 
the bitter calumny of his open enemies, we may consider 
that the general tenor of his life has sufficient weight to ex- 
culpate him from an unsupported accusation. 

Of Julia, Suetonius expressly says that the crime of which 
she was accused was uncertain, and that she was con- 
demned unheard. Seneca, on the other hand, was tried in 
the Senate and found guilty. He tells us that it was not 
Claudius who flung him down, but rather that, when he was 
falhng headlong, the Emperor supported him with the mod- 
eration of his divine hand; "he entreated the Senate on my 
behalf; he not only gave me life, but even begged it for me. 
Let it be his to consider," adds Seneca, with the most dul- 
cet flattery, " in what light he may wish my cause to be re- 
garded ; either his justice will find, or his mercy will make, 
it a good cause. He ^vill alike be worthy of my gratitude, 
whether his ultimate conviction of my innocence be due to 
his knowledge or to his will." 



THE REIGN OF CLAUDIUS. 79 

This passage enables us to conjecture how matters stood. 
The avarice of Messalina was so insatiable that the non- 
confiscation of Seneca's immense wealth is a proof that, for 
some reason, her fear or hatred of him was not implacable. 
Although it is a remarkable fact that she is barely men- 
tioned, and never once abused, in the writings of Seneca, 
yet there can be no doubt that the charge was brought by 
her instigation before the senators ; that after a very slight 
discussion, or none at all, Claudius was, or pretended to be 
convinced of Seneca's culpability; that the senators, with 
their usual abject servility, at once voted him guilty of high 
treason, and condemned him to death, and the confiscation 
of his goods ; and that Claudius, perhaps from his own re- 
spect for literature, perhaps at the intercession of Agrippina, 
or of some powerful freedman, remitted part of his sent- 
ence, just as King James I. remitted all the severest por- 
tions of the sentence passed on Francis Bacon. 

Neither the belief of Claudius nor the condemnation of 
the Senate furnish the slightest valid proofs against him. 
The Senate at this time were so base and so filled with 
terror, that on one occasion a mere word of accusation from 
the freedman of an Emperor was suflicient to make them 
fall upon one of their number and stab him to death upon 
the spot with their iron pens. As for poor Claudius, his 
administration of justice, patient and laborious as it was, 
had already grown into a public joke. On one occasion he 
wr-ote down and delivered the wise decision, "that he 
agreed with the side which had set forth the truth." On 
another occasion, a common Greek whose suit came be- 
fore him grew so impatient at his stupidity as to exclaim 
aloud, " You are an old fool." We are not informed that 
the Greek was punished. Roman usage allowed a good 



So SENECA. 

deal of banter and coarse personality. We are told that 
on one occasion even the furious and bloody Caligula, see- 
ing a provincial smile, called him up, and asked him what 
he was laughing at. " At you," said the man, " you look 
such a humbug." The grim tyrant was so struck with the 
humour of the thing that he took no further notice of it. 
A Roman knight against whom some foul charge had been 
trumped up, seeing Claudius listening to the most contemp- 
tible and worthless evidence against him, indignantly abused 
him for his cruel stupidity, and flung his pen and tablets in 
his face so violently as to cut his cheek. In fact, the Em- 
peror's singular absence of mind gave rise to endless anec- 
dotes. Among other things, when some condemned crimi- 
nals were to fight as gladiators, and addressed him before 
the games in the sublime formula — "Ave, Imperator, mori- 
turi te salutamus !" (" Hail, C^sar ! doomed to die, we 
salute thee !") he gave the singularly inappropriate answer, 
" Avete vos !" (" Hail ye also !") which they took as a sign 
of pardon, and were unwilling to fight until they were act- 
ually forced to do so by the gestures of the Emperor. 

The decision of such judges as Claudius and his Senate 
is worth very little in the question of a man's innocence or 
guilt; but the sentence was that Seneca should be banished 
-to the island of Corisca, 



CHAPTER VII. 



SENECA IN EXILE. 



So, in A. D. 41, in the prime of life and the full vigour of 
his faculties, with a name stained by a ciiarge of which he 
may have been innocent, but of which he was condemned 
as guilty, Seneca bade farewell to his noble-minded mother, 
to his loving aunt, to his bothers, the beloved GaUio and 
the literary Mela, to his nephew, the ardent aud promising 
young Lucan, and, above all — which cost him the severest 
pang — to Marcus, his sweet and prattling boy. It was a 
calamity which might have shaken the fortitude of the very 
noblest soul, and it had by no means come upon him single 
handed. Already he had lost his wife, he had suffered 
from acute and chronic ill-health, he had been bereaved 
but three weeks previously of another little son. He had 
been cut short by the jealousy of one emperor from a 
ca:eer of splendid success ; he was now banished by the 
imbecile subservience of another from all that he held 
most dear. 

We are hardly able to conceive the intensity of anguish 
with which an anc'ent Roman generally regarded the 
thought of banishment. In the long melancholy wail of 
Ovid's "Tristia;" in the bitter and heart-rending com- 
plaints of Cicero's " Epistles," we may see something of 



82 SENECA. 

that intense absorption in the Hfe of Rome which to most 
of her eminent citizens made a permanent separation from 
the city and its interests a thought ahiiost as terrible as 
death itself. Even the stoical and heroic Thrasea openly 
confessed that he should prefer death to exile. To a heart 
so affectionate, to a disposition so social, to a mind so 
active and amb'.tious as that of Seneca, it must have been 
doubly bitter to exchange the happiness of his family circle, 
the splendour of an imperial court, the luxuries of enormous 
wealth, the refined society of statesmen, and the ennobling 
intercourse of philosophers for the savage wastes of a rocty 
island and the society of boorish illiterate islanders, or at 
the best, of a few other political exiles, all of whom would 
be as miserable as himself, and some of whom would prob- 
ably have deserved their fate. 

The Mediteranean rocks selected for political exiles — 
Gyaros, Seriphos, Scyathos, Patmos, Pontia, Pandataria — 
were generally rocky, barren, fever-stricken places, chosen 
by design as the most wretched conceivable spots in which 
human life could be maintained at all. Yet these islands 
were crowded with exiles, and in them were to be found 
not a few princesses of Csesarian origin. We must not 
draw a parallel to their position from that of an Eleanor, 
the wife of Duke Humphrey, immured in Peel Castle in 
the Isle of Man, or of a Mary Stuart in the Isle of Loch 
Levin — for it was something incomparably worse. No care 
was taken even to provide for their actual wants. Their 
very lives were not secure. Agrippa Posthumus and Nero, 
the brothers of the Emperor Cahgula, had been so reduced 
by starvation that both of the w- etched youths had been 
driven to support life by eating the materials with whicli 
their beds were stuffed. The Emperor Caius had once 



SEXECA IX EXILE. ^^ 

asked an exile, whom he had recalled from banishment, 
in what manner he had been accustomed to employ his 
time on the island. " I used," sa'd the flatterer, " to pray- 
that Tiberius might die, and that you might succeed." 
It immediately struck Caius that the exiles whom he had 
banished might be similarly employed, and accordingly he 
sent centurions round the islands to put them all to death. 
Such were the miserable circumstances which might be in 
store for a poHtical outlaw. If we imagine what must have 
been the feelings of a d'Espremenil, when a Lttee de cachet 
consigned him to a prison in the Isle d'Hieres; or what a 
man like Burke might have felt, if he had been compelled 
to retire for life to the Bermudas; we may realize to some 
extent the heavy trial which now befel the life of Seneca. 

Corsica was the island chosen for his place of banish- 
ment, and a spot more uninviting could hardly have been 
selected. It was an island "shaggy and savage," inter- 
sected from north to south by a chain of wild, inaccessible 
mountains, clothed to their summits with gloomy and impen- 
etrable forests of pine and f.r. Its untamable inhabitants 
are described by, the geographer Strabo as being "wilder 
than the wild beasts." It produced but Httle corn, and 
scarcely any fruit-trees. It abounded, indeed, in swarms 
of wild bees, but its very honey was bitter and unpalatable, 
from being infected with the acrid taste of the box-flowers 
on which they fed. Neither gold nor silver were found 

* Among the Jews the homicides who had fled to a city of refuge 
were set free on the high priest's death, and, in order to prevent them 
from praying for his death, the mother and other relatives of the high 
priest used to supply them with clothes and other necessaries. See the 
author's article on '" Asylum " in Kitto's Encyclopaedia (ed. Alexan- 
der.) 



84 S£X£CA ■ 

there ; it produced nothing worth exporting, and barely 
sufficient for the mere necessaries of its inhabitants ; it re- 
joiced in no great navigable rivers, and even the trees, in 
which it abounded, were neither beautiful nor fruitful. 
Seneca describes it in more than one of his epigrams, as a 

"Terrible isle, when earliest summer glows 
Yet fiercer when his face the dog-star shows ;" 

and again as a 

' ' Barbarous land, which rugged rocks surround, 
Whose horrent cliffs with idle wastes are crowned, 
No autumn fruit, no tilth the summer yields. 
Nor olives cheer the winter-silvered fields : 
Nor j oyous spring her tender foliage lends, 
Nor genial herb the luckless soil befriends ; 
Nor bread, nor sacred fire, nor freshening wave; — 
Nought here — save exile, and the exile's grave !" 

In such a place, and under such conditions, Seneca had 
ample need for all his philosophy. And at first it did not 
fail him. Towards the close of his first year of exile he 
wTote the " Consolation to his mother Helvia," whijzh is 
one of the noblest and most charming of all his works. 

He had often thought, he said, of writing to console her 
under this deep and wholly unlooked-for trial, but hitherto 
he had abstained from doing so, lest, while his own an- 
guish and hers were fresh, he should only renew the pain 
of the wound by his unskilful treatment. He waited, 
therefore till time had laid ils healing hand upon her sor- 
rows, especially because he found no precedent for one in 
his position condoling with others when he himself seemed 
more in need of consolation, and because something nev/ 
a.id admirable would be required of a man who, as it were, 



SENECA IX EXILE. , 85 

raised his head from the funeral pyre to console his friends. 
Still he now feels impelled to write to her, because to alle- 
viate her regrets will be to lay aside his own. He does not 
attempt to conceal from her the magnitude of the misfortune, 
because so far from being a mere novice in sorrow, she has 
tasted it from her earliest years in all its varieties ; and be- 
cause his purpose was to conquer her grief, not to extenu- 
ate its causes. Those many miseries would indeed have 
been in vain, if they had not taught her how to bear wretch- 
edness. He will prove to her therefore that she has no 
cause to grieve either on his account, or on her own. Not 
on his — because he is happy among circumstances which 
others would think miserable and because he assures her 
with his own Hps that not only is he not miserable, but that 
he can never be made so. Ev^ry one can secure his own 
happiness, if he learns to seek it, not in external circum- 
stances, but in himself He cannot indeed claim for him- 
self the title of wise, for, if so, he would be the most fortu- 
nate of men, and near to God Himself ; but, which is the 
next best thing, he has devoted himself to the study of wise 
m.en, and from them he has learnt to expect nothing and to 
be prepared for all th'ngs. The blessings which Fortune 
had hitherto bestowed on him, — wealth, honours, glory, — 
he had placed in such a position that she might rob him of 
them all without disturbing him. There was a great space 
between them and himself, so that they could be taken but not 
torn away. Undazzled by the glamour of prosperity, he was 
unshaken by the blow of adversity. In circumstances 
which were the envy of all men he had never seen any real 
or solid blessing, but rather a painted emptiness, a gilded 
deception ; and similarly he found nothing 1 eally hard or 
terrible in ills which the common voice has -o described. 



86 SENECA. 

What, for instance, was exile ? it was but a change of 
place, an absence from one's native land; and, if you 
looked at the swarming multitudes in Rome itself, you would 
find that the majority of them were practically in contented 
and willing exile, drawn thither by necessity, by ambition, 
or by the search for the best opportunities of vice. No 
isle so wretched and so bleak which did not attract some 
voluntary sojourners ; even this precipitous and naked rock 
of Corsica, the hungriest, roughest, most savage, most un- 
healthy spot conceivable, had more foreigners in it than 
native inhabitants. The natural restlessness and mobiUty 
of the human mind, which arose from its getherial origin, 
drove men to change from place to place. The colonies of 
different nations, scattered all over the civilized and uncivi- 
lized world even in spots the most chilly and uninviting, 
show that the condition of place is no necessary ingredient 
in human happiness. Even Corsica had often changed its 
owners ; Greeks from Marseilles had first lived there, then 
Ligurians and Spaniards, then some Roman colonists, whom 
the aridity and thorniness of the rock had not kept away. 

" Varro thought that nature, Brutus that the conscious- 
ness of virtue, were sufficient consolations for any exile. 
How little have I lost in comparison with those tvv^o fairest 
possessions which I shall everywhere enjoy — nature and my 
own integrity ! Whoever or whatever made the world — 
whether it were a deity, or disembodied reason, or a divine 
interfusing spirit, or destiny, or an immutable series of con- 
nected causes — the result was that nothing, except our very 
meanest possessions, should depend on the will of another. 
Man's best gifts lie beyond the power of man either to give 
or to take away. This Universe, the grandest and loveliest 
work of nature, and the Intellect which was created to ob- 



SENECA IN EXILE. 87 

serve and to admire it, are our special and eternal posses- 
sions, which shall last as long as we last ourselves. Cheer- 
ful, therefore, and erect, let us hasten with undaunted foot- 
steps whithersoever our fortunes lead us. 

" There is no land where man cannot dwell, — no land 
where he cannot uplift his eyes to heaven ; wherever we are, 
the distance of the divine from the human remains the 
same. So then, as long as my eyes are not robbed of that 
spectacle with which they cannot be satiated, so long as I 
may look upon the sun and moon, and fix my lingering 
gaze on the other constellations, and consider their rising 
and setting and the spaces between them and the causes 
of their less and greater speed, — while I may contemplate 
the multitude of stars glittering throughout the heaven, some 
stationary, some revolving, some suddenly blazing forth, 
others dazzling the gaze with a flood of fire as though they 
fell, and others leaving over a long space their trails of 
light; while I am in the midst of such phenomena, and 
mingle myself, as far as a man may, with things celestial, — 
while my soul is ever occupied in contemplations so sublime 
as these, what matters it what ground I tread ? 

" What though fortune has thrown me where the most 
magnificent abode is but a cottage ? the humblest cottage, 
if it be but the home of virtue, may be more beautiful than 
all temples; no place is narrow which can contain the 
crowd of glorious virtues; no exile severe into which you 
may go with such a rehance. When Brutus left Marcellus 
at Mitylene, he seemed to be himself going into exile be- 
cause he left that illustrious exile behind him. Caesar 
would not land at Mitylene, because he blushed to see him. 
Marcellus therefore, though he was living in exile and pov- 
erty, was living a most happy and a most noble life. 



88 SEXECA. 

" ' One self-approving hour whole worlds outweighs 
Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas ; 
And more true joy Marcellus exiled feeis, 
Than Caesar A\ith a senate at his heels. ' 

"And as for poverty every one who is not corrupted 
by the madness of avarice and luxury know that it is no 
evil. How little does man need, anrd how easily can he se- 
cure that I As for me, I consider myself as ha\-ing lost not 
wealth, but the trouble of looking after it. Bodily wants 
are few — warmth and food, nothing more. >.Iay the gods 
and goddesses confound that gluttony which sweeps the 
sky, and sea and land for birds, and animals, and fish ; 
which eats to vomit and vomits to eat, and hunts over the 
whole world for that which after all it cannot even digest ! 
They might satisfy their hunger with little, and they ex- 
cite it with much. What harm can poverty inflict on a 
man who despises such excesses ? Look at the god-like 
and heroic poverty of our ancestors, and compare the 
simple glory of a Gamillus with the lasting infamy of a 
luxurious Apicius ! Even exile will yield a sufficiency of 
necessaries, but not even kingdoms are enough for super- 
fluities. It is the soul that makes us rich or poor: and 
the soul follows us into exile, and finds and enjoys its own 
blessings even in the most barren soutudes. 

" But it does not even need philosophy to enable us 
to despise povert}^ Look at the poor : are they not often 
obviously happier than the rich ? And the times are so 
changed that what we would novv- consider the poverty of 
an exile would then have been regarded as the patrimony 
of a prince. Protected by sucli precedents as those of 
Homer, and Zeno, and Menenius Agrippa, and Regulus. 



SENECA IN EXILE. 89 

and Scipio, poverty ■ becomes not only safe but even esti- 
mable. 

" And if you make the objection that the ills which 
assail me are not exile only, or poverty only, but disgrace 
as well, I reply that the soul which is hard enough to 
resist one wound is invulnerable to all If we have utterly 
conquered the fear of death, nothing else can daunt us. 
What is disgrace to one who stands above the opinion of 
the multitude ? what was even a death of disgrace to 
Socrates, who by entering a prison made it cease to be dis- 
graceful ? Cato was twice defeated in his candidature for 
the praetorship and consulship : well, this was the disgrace 
of those honours, and not of Cato. No one can be despised 
by another until he has learned to despise himself. The 
man who has learned to triumph over sorrow wears his 
miseries as though they were sacred fillets upon his brow, 
and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man bravely 
wretched. Such men inflict disgrace upon disgrace itself. 
Some indeed say that death is preferable to contempt ; to 
whom I reply that he who is great when he falls is great in 
his prostration, and is no more an object of contempt than 
when men tread on the ruins of sacred buildings, which 
men of piety venerate no less than if they stood. 

" On my behalf therefore, dearest mother; you have no 
cause for endless weeping : nor have you on your own. 
You cannot grieve for me on selfish grounds, in conse- 
quence of any personal loss to yourself; for you were ever 
eminently unselfish, and unlike other women in all your 
dealings with your sons, and you were always a help and a 
benefactor to them rather than they to you. Nor should 
you give way out of a regret and longing for me in my ab- 
sence. We have often previously been separated, and, 



90 SENECA. 

although it is natural that you should miss that deHghtful 
conversation, that unrestricted confidence, that electrical 
sympathy of heart and intellect that always existed between 
us, and that boyish glee wherewith your visits always 
affected me, yet, as you rise above the common herd of 
women in virtue, the simplicity, the purity of your life, you 
must abstain from feminine tears as you have done from 
all feminine follies. Consider how Cornelia, who had lost 
ten children by death, instead of wailing for her dead sons, 
thanked fortune that had made her sons Gracchi. Rutilia 
followed her son Cotta into exile so dearly did she love 
him, yet no one saw her shed a tear after his burial. She 
had shown her affection when it was needful, she restrained 
her sorrow when it was superflous. Imitate the example of 
these great women as you have imitated their virtues. I 
want you not to beguile your sorrow by amusements or oc- 
cupations, but to conquer it. For you may now return to 
those philosophical studies in which you once showed your- 
self so apt a proficient, and which formerly my father 
checked. They will gradually sustain and comfort you in 
your hour of grief. 

" And meanwhile consider how many sources of consola- 
tion already exist for you. My brothers are still with you; 
the dignity of GaUio, the leisure of Mela, will protect you; 
the ever-sparkling mirth of my darling little Marcus will 
cheer you up ; the training of my little favourite Novatilla 
will be a duty which will assuage your sorrow. For your 
father's sake, too, though he is absent from you, you must 
moderate your lamentations. Above all, your sister — that 
truly faithful, loving, and high-souled lady, to whom I owe 
so deep a debt of affection for her kindness to me from my 



SEXECA ly EXILE. 9I 

cradle until now, — she mil yield you the fondest sympathy 
and the truest consolation. 

" But since I know that after all your thoughts will 
constantly revert to me, and that none of your children 
will be more frequently before your mind than I, — not be- 
cause they are less dear to you than I, but because it is 
natural to lay the hand most often upon the spot which 
pains, — I will tell you how you are to think of me. Think 
of me as happy and cheerful, as though I were in the midst 
of blessings ; as indeed I am, while my mind, free from 
every care, has leisure for its own pursuits, and sometimes 
amuses itself with lighter studies, sometimes, eager for 
truth, soars upwards to the contemplation of its own nature, 
and the nature of the universe. It inquires first of all 
about the lands and their situation ; then into the condi- 
tion of the surrounding sea, its ebbings and flowings ; then 
it carefully studies all this terror-fraught interspace between 
heaven and earth, tumultuous with thunders and lightnings, 
and the blasts of winds, and the showers of rain, and snow 
and hail ; then, having wandered through all the lower re- 
gions, it bursts upwards to the highest things, and revels in 
the most lovely spectacle of that which is divine, and, 
mindful of its own eternity, passes into all that hath been 
and all that shall be throughout all ages." 

Such in briefest outline, and without any of that grace 
of language with which Seneca has invested it, is a sketch 
of the little treatise which many have regarded as among the 
most delightful of Seneca's works. It presents the picture 
of that grandest of all spectacles — 

"A good man struggling with the storms of fate." 



92 SENECA. 

So far there was something truly Stoical in the aspect 
of Seneca's exile. But was this grand attitude consistently 
maintained ? Did his Httle raft of philosophy sink under 
him, or did it bear him safely over the stormy waves of this 
great sea of adversity. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

senega's philosophy gives way. 

There are some misfortunes of which the very essence con- 
sists in tlieir continuance. They are tolerable so long as 
they are illuminated by a ray of hope. Seclusion and hard- 
ship might even come at first with some charm of novelty 
to a philosopher who, as was not unfrequent among the 
amateur thinkers of his time, occasionally practised them 
m the very midst of vv^ealth and friends. But as the hope- 
less years rolled on, as the efforts of friends proved unavail- 
ing, as the loving son, and husband, and father felt himself 
cut off from the societv" of those whom he cherished in such 
tender affection, as the dreary island seemed to him ever 
more barbarous and more barren, while season after season 
added to its horrors mthout revealing a single compensa- 
tion, Seneca grew more and more disconsolate and de- 
pressed. It seemed to be his miserable destiny to rust 
away, useless, unbefriended, and forgotten. Formed to fas- 
cinate society, here there were none for him to fascinate; 
gifted \^ath an eloquence which could keep listening senates 
hushed, here he found neither subject nor audience; and 
his hfe began to resemble a river which, long before it has 
reached the sea, is lost in dreary marshes and choking 
sands. 



94 SEXECA. 

Like the brilliant Ovid, when he was banished to the 
frozen wilds of Tomi, Seneca vented his anguish m plaint- 
ive waihng and bitter verse. In his handful of epigrams 
he finds nothing too severe for the place of his exile. He 
cries — 

"Spare thou thine exiles, lightly o'er thy dead, 
Alive, yet buried, be thy dust bespread." 

And addressing some malignant enemy — 

"Whoe'er thou art, — thy name shall I repeat ? — 
WTio o'er mine ashes dar'st to press thy feet, 
And, uncontented wdth a fall so dread, 
Draw'st bloodstained weapons on my darkened head, 
Beware ! for nature, pit}ing, guards the tomb, 
And ghosts avenge th' invaders of their gloom, 
Hear, Env}% hear the gods proclaim a truth. 
Which my shrill ghost repeats to move thy ruth, 
Wretches are sacred things, — thy hands refrain : 
E'en sacrilegious hands from tombs abstain." 

The one fact that seems to have haunted him most was 
that his abode in Corsica was a Uving death. 

Bat the most complete picture of his state of mind, and 
the most melancholy memorial of his inconsistency as a 
philosopher, is to be found in his " Consolation to Polyb- 
lus." Polybius was one of those freedmen of the Em- 
peror whose bloated wealth and servile insolence were one 
of the darkest and strangest phenomena of the time. Clau- 
dius, more than any of his class, from the pecuhar imbecil- 
ity of his character, was under the powerful influence of this 
class of men ; and so dangerous was their power that Mes- 
salina herself was forced to win her ascendency over her 
husband's mind by making these men her supporters, and 
cultivating their favour. Such were •• ihe most excellent 
Felix," the judge of St. Paul, and the slave who became a 



SEXECA'S PHILOSOPHY GIVES WAY. 95 

husband to three queens, — Narcissus, in whose household 
(which moved the envy of the Emperor) were some of 
those Christians to whom St. Paul sends greetings from the 
Christians of Corinth,* — Pallas, who never deigned to 
speak to his own slaves, but gave all his commands by 
signs, and who actually condescended to receive the thanks 
of the Senate, because he, the descendant of Etruscan 
kings, yet condescended to serve the Emperor and the 
Commonwealth ; a preposterous and outrageous compli- 
ment, which appears to have been solely due to the fact of 
his name being identical with that of Virgil's young hero, 
the son of the mythic Evander ! 

Among this unworthy crew a certain Polybius was not 
the least conspicuous. He was the director of the Em- 
peror's studies, — a worthy Alcuin to such a Charlemagne. 
All that we know about him is that he was once the favour- 
ite of MessaHna, and afterwards her victim, and that in 
the day of his eminence the favour of the Emperor placed 
him so high that he was often seen walking between the 
two consuls. Such was the man to whom, on the occasion 
of his brother's death, Seneca addressed this treatise of 
consolation. It has come down to us as a fragment, and it 
would have been well for Seneca's fame if it had not come 
down to us at all. Those who are enthusiastic for his repu- 
tation would gladly prove it spurious, but we believe that 
no candid reader can study it without perceiving its gen- 
uineness. It is very improbable that he ever intended it to 
be published, and whoever suffered it to see the light was 
the successful enemy of its illustrious author. 

Its sad and abject tone confirms the inference, drawn 
from an allusion wh'ch it contains, that it was written to- 
* Rom. xvi. II. 



96 SEX EC A. 

wards the close of the third year of Seneca's exile. He 
apologises for its style by saying that if it betrayed any 
weakness of thought or inelegance of expression this was 
only what might be expected from a man who had so long 
been surrounded by the coarse and offensive patois of bar- 
barians. We need hardly follow him into the ordinary 
topics of moral philosophy with which it abounds, or ex- 
pose the inconsistency of its tone with that of Seneca's 
other writings. He consoles the freedman with the '' com- 
mon common-places " that death is ine\dtable ; that grief is 
useless ; that we are all born to sorrow ; that the dead 
would not wish us to be miserable for their sakes. He re- 
minds him that, owing to his illustrious position, all eyes are 
upon him. He bids him find consolation in the studies in 
which he has always shown himself so pre-eminent, and 
lastly he refers him to those shining examples of magnani- 
m^ous fortitude, for the climax of which, no doubt, the 
whole piece of interested flattery was composed. For this 
passage, written in a c7'escejido style, culminates, as might 
have been expected, in the subhme spectacle of Claudius 
Gsesar. So far from relenting his exile, he crawls in the 
dust to kiss Caesar's beneficent feet for saving him from 
death j so far from asserting his innocence^— which, perhaps, 
was impossible, since to do so might have involved him in 
a fresh charge of treason — he talks with all the abjectness 
of guilt. He belauds the clemency of a man, who, he tell; 
us elsewhere, used to kill men w4th as much sangfroid as a 
dog eats on"al; the prodigious powers of memory of a 
divine creature who used to ask^^eople to dice and to din- 
ner whom he had executed the day before, and who even 
inquired as to the cause of his wife's absence a i^^' d»s 
after having given the order for her execution ; the extraor- 



i> 



SENECA'S PHILOSOPHY GIVES WAY. 



97 



dinary eloquence of an indistinct stutterer, whose head 
shook and whose broad Hps seemed to be in contortions 
whenever he spoke.* If Polybius feels sorrowful, let him 
turn his eyes to Csesar ; the splendour of that most great 
and radiant deity will so dazzle his eyes that all their tears 
will be dried up in the admiring gaze. Oh that the bright 
occidental star whxh has beamed on a world which, before 
its rising, was plunged in darkness and deluge, would only 
shed one little beam upon him ! 

No doubt these grotesque and gorgeous flatteries, con- 
trasting strangely with the bitter language of intense hatred 
and scathing contempt which Seneca poured out on the 
memory of Claudius after his death, were penned with the 
sole purpose of being repeated in those divine and benig- 
nant ears. No doubt the superb freedman, who had been 
allowed so rich a share of the flatteries lavished on his 
master, would take the opportunity — if not out of good- 
nature, at least out of vanity, — to retail them in the mi- 
perial ear. If the moment w^ere but favourable, who knows 
but what at some oblivious and crapulous moment the Em- 
peror might be induced to sign an order for our philoso- 
phers recall ? 

Let us not be hard on him. Exile and wretchedness are 
stern trials, and it is difficult for him to brave a martyr's 
misery who has no conception of a martyr's crown. To a 
man who, Uke Seneca, aimed at being not only a philoso- 
pher, but also a man of the world — who in this very treatise 
criticises the Stoics for their ignorance of life — there would 
not have seemed to be even the shadow of disgrace in a 
private effusion of insincere flattery intended to win the re- 

#* These slight discrepancies of description are taken from counter 
p.assages of Consol. ad Polyb. and the Ludus de Morte Ccesaris, 



98 SEX EC A. 

mission of a deplorable banishment. Or, if we condemn 
Seneca, let us remember that Christians, no less than philos- 
ophers, have attained a higher eminence only to exemplify 
a more disastrous fall. The flatteries of Seneca to Clau- 
dius are not more fulsome, and are infinitely less disgrace- 
ful, than those which fawning bishops exuded on his coun- 
terpart, King James. And if the Roman Stoic can gain 
nothing from a comparison with the yet more egregious 
moral failure of the greatest of Christian thinkers — Francis 
Bacon, Viscount St. Alban's — let us not forget that a Sav- 
onarola and a Cranmer recanted under torment, and that 
the anguish of exile drew even from the starry and imperial 
spirit of Dante Alighieri words and sentiments for which in 
nis noblest moments he might have blushed. 



CHAPTER IX. 
senega's recall fPv.om exile. 

Of the Ittst five years of Seneca's weary exile no trace has 
been preserved to us. What were his alternations of hope 
and fear, of devotion to philosophy and of hankering after 
the world which he had lost, we cannot tell. Any hopes 
which he may have entertained respecting the intervention 
of Polybius in his favour must have been utterly quenched 
when he heard that the freedman, though formerly power- 
ful with MessaHna, had forfeited his own life in conse- 
quence of her machinations. But the closing period of his 
days in Corsica must have brought him thrilling news, 
which would save him from falHng into absolute despair. 

For the career of Messalina was drawing rapidly to a 
close. The Hfe of this beautiful princess, short as it was, 
for she died at a very early age, was enough to make her 
name a proverb of everlasting infamy. For a time she 
appeared irresistible. Her personal fascination had won 
for her an unlimited sway over the facile mind of Clau- 
dius, and she had either won over by her intrigues, or 
terrified by her pitiless severity, the noblest of the. Romans 
and the most powerful of the freedmen. But we see in 
her fate, as we see on every page of history, that vice ever 
carries with it the germ of its own.ruin, and. that a^retrihu.- 
4 



loo SEXECA. 

tion, which is all the more inevitable from being often 
slow, awaits every violation of the moral law. 

There is something almost incredible in the penal infatu- 
ation which brought about her fall. During the absence 
of her husband at Ostia, she wedded in open day with C. 
Sihus, the most beautiful and the most promising of the 
young Roman nobles. She had apparently persuaded Clau- 
dius that this was merely a mock-marriage, intended to avert 
some ominous auguries which threatened to destroy "the 
husband of Messalina ;" but, whatever Claudius may have 
imagined, all the rest of the world knew the marriage to be 
real, and regarded it not only as a vile enormity, but also 
as a direct attempt to bring about a usurpation of the im- 
perial power. 

It was by this view of the case that the freedman Nar- 
cissus roused the inert spirit and timid indignation of the 
injured Emperor. While the wild revelry of the wedding 
ceremony was at its height, Vettius Valens, a well-kno^m 
physician of the day, had in the license of the festival 
struggled up to the top of a lofty tree, and when they asked 
hum what he saw, he replied in words which, though meant 
for jest, were full of dreadful significance, " I see a fierce 
storm approaching from Ostia." He had scarcely uttered 
the words when first an uncertain rumour, and then numer- 
ous msssengers brought the news that Claudius knew all, 
and was coming to take vengeance. The news fell like a 
thunderbolt on the assembled guests. Silius, as though 
nothing had happened, went to transact his public duties 
in the Forum ; Ivlessalina instantly sending for her children, 
Octavia and Britannicus, that she might meet her husband 
wdth them by her side, implored the protection of Vibidia, 
the eldest of the chaste virgins of Vesta, and, deserted by 



SEXECA'S RECALL FROM EXLLE. loi 

all but three companions, fled on foot and unpitied, through 
the whole breadth of the city, until she reached the Ostian 
gate, and mounted the rubbish-cart of a market gardener 
which happened to be passing. But Narcissus absorbed 
both the looks and the attention of the Emperor by the 
proofs and the narrative of her crimes, and, getting rid of 
the Vestal by promising her that the cause of Messalina 
should be tried, he hurried Claudius forward, first to the 
house of Silius, which abounded with the proofs of his 
guilt, and then to the camp of the Pr^torians, where swift 
vengeance was taken on the whole band of those who had 
been involved in Messalina's crimes. She meanwhile, in 
alternative paroxysms of fury and abject terror, had taken 
refuge in the garden of Lucullus, which she had coveted 
and made her own by injustice. Claudius, who had re- 
turned home, and had recovered some of his facile equa- 
nimity in the pleasures of the table, showed signs of relent- 
ing ; but Narcissus knew that delay was death, and on his 
own authority sent a tribune and centurions to despatch 
the Empress. They found her prostrate on the ground at 
the feet of her mother Lepida, with whom in her prosperity 
she had quarrelled, but who now came to pity and console 
her misery, and to urge her to that voluntary death which 
alone could save her from imminent and more cruel in- 
famy. But the mind of Messalina, like that of Nero after- 
wards, was so corrupted by wickedness that not even sucli 
poor nobility was left in her as is implied in the courage of 
despair. While she wasted the time in tears and lamenta- 
tions, a noise was heard of battering at the doors, and the 
tribune stood by her in stern silence, the freedman with 
slavish vituperation. First she took the dagger in her irre- 
solute hand, and after she had twice stabbed herself in 



io2 SENECA 

vain, the tribune drove home the fatal blow, and the corpse 
of Messalina, like that of Jezebel, lay weltering in its blood 
in the plot of ground of which her crimes had robbed its 
lawful owner. Claudius, still Hngering at his dinner, was 
informed that she had perished, and neither asked a single 
question at the time, nor subsequently displayed the 
slightest sign of anger, of hatred, of pity, or of any human 
emotion. 

The absolute silence».©f Seneca respecting the woman 
who had caused him' the bitterest anguish and humiHa- 
tion of his life is, as we have remarked already, a strange 
and significant phenomenon. It is clearly not due to ac- 
cident, for the vices which he is incessantly describing and 
denouncing would have found in this miserable woman 
their most flagrant illustration, nor could contemporary 
history have furnished a more apposite example of the vin- 
dication by her fate of the stern majesty of the moral law. 
But yet, though Seneca had every reason to loathe her 
character and to detest her memory, though he could not 
have rendered to his patrons a more welcome service than 
by blackening her reputation, he never so much as men- 
tions her name. And this honourable silence gives us a 
favourable insight into his character. For it can only be 
due to his pitying sense of the fact that even Messahna, 
bad as she undoubtedly was, had been judged already by 
a higher Power, and had met her diead punishment at the 
hand of God. It has been conjectured, with every appear- 
ance of probabiUty, that the blackest of the scandals which 
were beheved and circulated respecting her had their origin 
in the published autobiography of her deadly enemy and 
victorious successor. The many who had had a share in 
Messahna' s fall would be only too glad to poison every 



SENECA'S RECALL FROM EXILE. 103 

reminiscence of her life ; and the deadly implacable hatred 
of the worst woman who ever lived would find peculiar 
gratification in scattering every conceivable hue of disgrace 
over the acts of a rival whose young children it was her 
dearest object to supplant. That Seneca did not deign to 
chronicle even of an enemy what Agrippina was not 
ashamed to write, — that he spared one whom it was every 
one's interest and pleasure to malign, — that he regarded 
her terrible fall as a sufficient ^laim to pity, as it was a 
sufficient Nemesis upon her crimes,.^^is a trait in the char- 
acter of the philosopher which has hardly yet received the 
credit which it deserves. 



CHAPTER X. 

AGRIPPINA, THE ^lOTHER OF NERO. 

Scarcely had the grave closed over Messahna when the 
court was plunged into the most violent factions about the 
appointment of her successor. There were three principal 
candidates for the honour of the aged Emperor's hand. 
They were his former wife, JEha Petina, who had only been 
divorced in consequence of trivial disagreements, and who 
was supported by Narcissus ; LoUia Paulina, so celebrated 
in antiquity for her beauty and splendour, and who for a 
short time had been the wife of Caius ; and Agrippina the 
younger, the daughter of the great Germ aniens, and the 
niece of Claudius himself. Claudius, indeed, who had been 
as unlucky as Henry VIII, himself in the unhappiness 
which had attended his five experiments of matrimony, had 
made the strongest possible asseverations that he would 
never again submit himself to such a yoke. But he was so 
completely a tool in the hands of his own courtiers that no 
one attached the sUghtest importance to anything which he 
had said. 

The marriage of an uncle with his own niece was con- 
sidered a violation of natural laws, and was regarded wi- h 
no less horror among the Romans than it would be among 
ourselves. But Agrippina, by the use of means the most 



AGRIPPIXA, THE MOTHER OF AERO. 105 

unscrupulous, prevailed over all her rivals, and managed 
her interests with such consummate skill that, before many 
months had elapsed, she had become the spouse of Clau- 
dius and the Empress of Rome. 

With this princess the destinies of Seneca were most 
closely intertwined, and it will enable us the better to under- 
stand his position, and his writings, if we remember that all 
history discloses to us no phenomenon more portentous and 
terrible than that presented to us in the character of Agrip- 
pina, the mother of Nero. 

Of the virtues of her great parents she, like their other 
children, had inherited not one ; and she had exaggerated 
their family tendencies into passions which urged her into 
every form of crime. Her career from the very cradle had 
been a career of wickedness, nor had any one of the many 
fierce vicissitudes of her life called forth in her a single 
noble or amiable trait. Born at Oppidum Ubiorum (after- 
wards called in her honour Colonia Agrippina, and still re- 
taining its name in the form Cologne), she lost her father at 
the age of three, and her mother (by banishment) at the age 
of twelve. She was educated with bad sisters, with a wild 
and wicked brother, and under a grandmother whom she 
detested. At the age of fourteen she was married to Cnasus 
Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the most worthless and ill- 
reputed of the young Roman nobles of his day. The gos- 
siping biographies of the time still retain some anecdotes of 
his cruelty and selfishness. They tell us how he once, 
v/ithout the slightest remorse, ran over a poor boy who was 
playing on the Appian Road ; how on another occasion he 
knocked out the eye of a Roman knight who had given him 
a hasty answer ; and how, when his friend congratulated 
him on the birth of his son (the young Claudius Domitius, 



io6 SENECA. 

afterwards the Emperor Nero), he brutally remarked that 
from people like himself and Agrippina could only be born 
some monster destined for the pubhc ruin. 

Domitius was forty years old when he married Agrippina, 
and the young Nero was not born till nine years afterwards. 
Whatever there was of possible affection in the tigress- 
nature of Agrippina was now absorbed in the person of her 
child. For that child, from its cradle to her own death by 
his means, she toiled and sinned. The fury of her own 
ambition, inextricably linked with the uncontrollable fierce- 
ness of her love for this only son, henceforth directed every 
action of her life. Destiny had made her the sister of one 
Emperor; intrigue elevated her into the wife of another; 
her own crimes made her the mother of a third. And at 
first sight her career might have seemed unusually success- 
ful, for while still in the prime of life she was wielding, first 
in the name of her husband, and then in that of her son, no 
mean share in the absolute government of the Roman 
world. But meanwhile that same unerring retribution, 
whose stealthy footsteps in the rear of the triumphant crimi- 
nal we can track through page after page of history, was 
stealing nearer and nearer to her with uplifted hand. When 
she had reached the dizzy pinnacle of gratified love and 
pride to which she had waded through so many a deed of 
sin and blood, she was struck down into terrible ruin and 
violent shameful death, by the hand of that very son for 
whose sake she had so often violated the laws of virtue and 
integrity, and spurned so often the pure and tender obliga- 
tions which even the heathen had been taught by the voice 
of God within their conscience to recognize and to adore. 

Intending that her son should marry Octavia, the daugh- 
ter of Claudius, her first step was to drive to death Silanus, 



AGRIPPINA, THE MOTHER OF NERO. 107 

a young nobleman to whom Octavia had already been be- 
trothed. Her next care was to get rid of all rivals possible 
or actual. Among the former were the beautiful Calpurnia 
and her own sister-in-law, Domitia Lepida. Among the 
latter was the wealthy Lollia Paulina, against whom she 
trumped up an accusation of sorcery and treason, upon 
which her wealth was confiscated, but her life spared by the 
Emperor, who banished her from Italy. This half-ven- 
geance was not enough for the mother of Nero. Like the 
daughter of Herodias in sacred history, she despatched a 
tribune with orders to bring her the head of her enemy ; 
and when it was brought to her, and she found a difficulty 
in recognizing those withered and ghastly features of a once- 
celebrated beauty, she is said with her own hand to have 
lifted one of the lips, and to have satisfied herself that this 
was indeed the head of Lollia. To such horrors may a 
woman sink, when she has abandoned the love of God; 
and a fair face may hide a soul " leprous as sin itself." 
Well may Adolf Stahr observe that Shakespeare's Lady 
Macbeth and husband-murdering Gertrude are mere child- 
ren by the side of this awful giant-shape of steely feminine 
cruelty. 

Such was the princess who, in the year A.D. 49, recalled 
Seneca from exile.* She saw that her cruelties were in- 
spiring horror even into a city that had long been accus- 
tomed to blood, and Tacitus expressly tells us that she 
hoped to counterbalance this feeling by a stroke of popu- 
larity in recaUing from the waste sohtudes of Corsica the 
favourite philosopher and most popular author of the 
Roman world. Nor was she content with this public proof 

* Gallio was Proconsul of Achaia about A.D. 53, when St. Paul was 
brought before his tribunal . Very possibly his elevation may have been 
due to the restoration of Seneca's influence. 



loS SEXECA. 

of her belief in his innocence of the crime which had been 
laid to his charge, for she further procured for him the 
Prsetorship, and appointed him tutor and governor to her 
youthful son. Even in taking this step she did not forget 
her ambitious views ; for she knew that Seneca cherished a 
secret indignation against Claudius, and that Nero could 
have no more wise adviser in taking steps to secure the 
fruition of his imperial hopes. It might perhaps have been 
better for Seneca's happiness if he had never left Corsica, 
or set his foot again in that Circean and bloodstained court. 
Let it, however, be added in his exculpation, that another 
man of undoubted and scrupulous honesty, — Afranius Bur- 
rus — a man of the old, blunt, faithful type of Roman man- 
liness, whom Agrippina had raised to the Prefectship of the 
Praetorian cohorts, was willing to share his danger and his 
responsibilities. Yet he must have lived from the first in 
the very atmosphere of base and criminal intrigues. He 
must have formed an important member of Agrippina's 
party, which was in daily and deadly enmity against the 
party of Narcissus. He must have watched the incessant 
artifices by which Agrippina secured the adoption of her 
son Nero by an Emperor whose own son Britannicus was 
but three years his junior. He must have seen Nero al- 
ways honoured, promoted, paraded before the eyes of the 
populace as the future hope of Rome, whilst Britannicus, 
like the young Edwa.rd V. under the regency of his uncle, 
was neglected, surrounded with spies, kept as much as pos- 
sible out of his father's sight, and so completely thrust into 
the background from all observation that the populace be- 
gan seriously to doubt whether he were alive or dead. He 
must have seen Agrippina, who had now received the un- 
precedented honour of the title ''Augusta" in her lifetime. 



AGRIPPINA, THE MOTHER OF NERO. 109 

acting with such haughty insolence that there could be Httle 
doubt as to her ulterior designs upon the throne. He must 
have known that his splendid intellect was practically at the 
service of a woman in whom avarice, haughtiness, violence, 
treachery, and every form of unscrupulous criminality had 
reached a point hitherto unmatched even in a corrupt and 
pagan world. From this time forth the biography of Sene- 
ca must assume the form of an apology rather than of a 
panegyric. 

The Emperor could not but feel that in Agrippina he 
had chosen a wife even more intolerable than Messalina 
herself. Messahna had not interfered with the friends he 
loved, had not robbed him of the insignia of empire, had 
not filled his palace with a hard and unfeminine tyranny, 
and had of course watched with a mother's interest over the 
lives and fortunes of his children. Narcissus would not be 
likely to leave him long in ignorance that, in addition to 
her other plots and crimes, Agrippina had been as little true 
to him as his former unhappy wife. The information sank 
deep into his heart, and he was heard to mutter that it had 
been his destiny all along first to bear, and then to avenge, 
the enormities of his wives. Agrippina, whose spies filled 
the palace, could not long remain uninformed of so signifi- 
cant a speech ; and she probably saw with an instinct 
quickened by the awful terrors of her own guilty conscience 
that the Emperor showed distinct signs of his regret for hav- 
ing married his niece, and adopted her child to the preju- 
dice, if not to the ruin, of his own young son. If she wanted 
to reach the goal which she had held so long in view no 
time was to be lost. Let us hope that Seneca and Burrus 
were at least ignorant of the means which she took to effect 
her purpose. 



no SENECA. 

Fortune favoured her. The dreaded Narcissus, the most 
formidable obstacle to her murderous plans, was seized wiih 
an attack of the gout. Agrippina managed that his physician 
should recommend him the waters of Sinuessa in Campania 
by way of cure. He was thus got out of the way, and she 
proceeded at once to her work of blood. Entrusting the 
secret to Halotus, the Emperor's prcegustator — the slave 
whose office it was to protect him from poison by tasting 
every dish before him — and to his physician, Xenophon of 
Cos, she consulted Locusta, the Mrs. Turner of the period 
of this classical King James, as to the poison best suited to 
her purpose. Locusta was mistress of her art, in which 
long practice had given her a consummate skill. The 
poison must not be too rapid, lest it should cause suspicion ; 
nor too slow, lest it should give the Emperor time to con- 
sult for the interests of his son Britannicus ; but it was to 
be one which should disturb his intellect without causing im- 
mediate death. Claudius was a glutton, and the poison 
was given him with all the more ease because it was mixed 
with a dish of mushrooms, of which he was extravagantly 
fond. Agrippina herself handed him the choicest mush- 
room in the dish, and the poison at once reduced him to 
silence. As was too frequently the case, Claudius was in- 
toxicated at the time, and was carried off to his bed as if 
nothing had happened. A violent colic ensued, and it was 
feared that this, with a quantity of wine which he had 
drunk, would render the poison innocuous. But Agrippina 
had gone too far for retreat, and Xenophon, who knew that 
great crimes if frustrated are perilous, if successful are re- 
warded, came to her assistance. Under pretence of caus- 
ing him to vomit, he tickled the throat of the Emperor with 



AGRIPPINA, THE MOTHER OF NERO. in 

a feather smeared with a swift and deadly poison. It did 
its work, and before morning the Caesar was a corpse,* 

As has been the case not unfrequently in history, from the 
times of Tarquinius Prisons to those of Charles II., the 
death was concealed until everything had been prepared for 
the production of a successor. The palace was carefully 
watched ; no one was even admitted into it except Agrip- 
pina's most trusty partisans. The body was propped up 
with pillows ; actors were sent for " by his own desire '' to 
afford it some amusement ; and priests and consuls were 
bidden to offer up their vows for the hfe of the dead. Giv- 
ing out that the Emperor was getting better, Agrippina took 
care to keep Britannicus and his two sisters, Octavia and 
Antonia, under her own immediate eye. As though over- 
whelmed with sorrow she wept, and embraced them, and 
above all kept Britannicus by her side, kissing him with the 
exclamation " that he was the very image of his father,' ' 

* There is usually found among the writings of Seneca a most re- 
markable burlesque called Ludus de Morte Ccesaris. As to its author- 
ship opinions will always vary, but it is a work of such undoubted 
genius, so interesting, and so unique in its character, that I have 
thought it necessary to give in an Appendix a brief sketch of its argu- 
ment. We may at least hope that this satire, which overflows with the 
deadliest contempt of Claudius, is not from the same pen which wrote 
for Nero his funeral oration. It has, however, been supposed (without 
sufficient grounds) to be the lost ^ AitoKoXoKvvrcooii^hich. Seneca is 
said to have written on the apotheosis of Claudius. The very name is a 
bitter satire. It imagines the Emperor transformed, not into a God, 
but into a gourd — one of those ''bloated gourds which sun their speck- 
-led bellies before the doors of the Roman peasants, " ' ' The Senate de- 
creed his divinity; Seneca translated it into piimpkimty " fMerivale, 
Ro7n. Emp. v. 6oiJ. The Ludus begins by spattering mud on the 
memory of the divine Claudius ; it ends with a shower of poetic roses 
over the glory of the diviner Nero ! 



112 SEX EC A. 

and taking care that he should on no account leave her 
room. So the day wore on till it was the hour which the 
Chaldseans declared would be the only lucky hour in that 
unlucky October day. 

Noon came; the palace doors were suddenly thrown 
open : and Nero with Burrus at his side went out to the 
Praetorian cohort which was on guard. By the order of 
their commandant, they received him with cheers. A few 
only hesitated, looking round them and asking " Where was 
Britannicus ?" Since, however, he was not to be seen, and 
no one stirred in his favour, they followed the multitude. 
Nero was carried in triumph to the camp, made the soldiers 
a short speech, and promised to each man of them a splen- 
did donative. He was at once saluted Emperor. The 
Senate followed the choice ot the soldiers, and the provinces 
made no demur. Divine honors were decreed to the mur- 
dered man, and preparations made for a funeral which was 
to rival in its splendour the one which Livia had ordered 
for Augustus. But the will — which beyond all doubt had 
pro\'ided for the succession of Britannicus — was quietly 
done avvay with, and its exact prodsions were never known. 

And on the first evening of his imperial power, Nero, well 
aware to whom he owed his throne, gave to the sentinel 
who came to ask him the pass for the night the grateful and 
significant watchword of "Optima Mater," — "the best of 
mothers !" 



CHAPTER XL 

NERO AND HIS TUTOR. 

The impeial youth, whose destinies are now inextricably 
mingled with those of Seneca, was accompanied to the 
throne by the acclamations of the people. Wearied by the 
astuteness of an Augustus, the sullen wrath of a Tiberius, 
the mad ferocity of a Caius, the senile insensibility of a 
Claudius, they could not but welcome the succession of a 
bright and beautiful youth, whose fair hair floated over his 
shoulders, and whose features displayed the finest type of 
Roman beauty. There was nothing in his antecedents to 
give a sinister augury to his future development, and all 
classes alike dreamt of the advent of a golden age. We 
can understand their feelings if we compare them with 
those of our own countrymen when the sullen tyranny of 
Henry VIII. was followed by the youthful virtue and gen- 
tleness of Edv\^ard VI. Happy would it have been for Nero 
if his reign, Uke that of Edward, could have been cut 
short before the thick night of many crimes had settled 
down upon the promise of its dawn. For the first five 
years of Nero's reign — the famous Qjainqueimiiwi Neroiiis 
— were fondly regarded by the Romans as a period of al- 
most ideal happiness. In reahty, it was Seneca who was 
ruling in Nero's name. Even so excUent an Emperor as 



114 SENECA. 

Trajan is said to have admitted "that no other prince had 
nearly equalled the praise of that period." It is indeed 
probable that those years appeared to shine with an exag- 
gerated splendour from the intense gloom which succeeded 
them; yet we can see in them abundant circumstances 
which were quite sufficient to inspire an enthusiasm of hope 
and joy. The young Nero was at first modest and docile. 
His opening speeches, written with all the beauty of thought 
and language which betrayed the style of Seneca no less 
than his habitual sentiments, were full of glowing promises. 
All those things which had been felt to be injurious or op- 
pressive he promised to eschew. He would not, he said, 
reserve to himself, as Claudius had done, the irresponsible 
decision in all matters of business; no office or dignity 
should be won from him by flattery or purchased by bribes; 
he would not confuse his own personal interests with those 
of the commonwealth; he would respect the ancient preroga- 
tives of the Senate ; he would confine his own immediate 
attention to the provinces and the army. 

Nor were such promises falsified by his immediate con- 
duct. The odious informers who had flourished in previ- 
ous reigns were frowned upon and punished. Offices of 
public dignity were relieved from unjust and oppressive 
burdens. Nero prudently declined the gold and silver stat- 
ues and other extravagant honours which were offered to 
him by the corrupt and servile Senate, but he treated that 
body, which, fallen as it was, continued still to be the main 
representative of constitutional authority, with favour and 
respect. Nobles and officials begun to breathe more freely, 
and the general sense of an intolerable tyranny was percep- 
tibly relaxed. Severity was reserved for notorious crimi- 
nals, and was only iiiflicted in a regular and authorized 



i 



NERO AND HIS TUTOR. 115 

manner, when no one could donbt that it had been deserved. 
Above all, Seneca had disseminated an anecdote about 
his young pupil which tended more than any other 
circumstance to his wide spread popularity. England has 
remembered with gratitude and admiration the tearful reluct- 
ance of her youthful Edward to sign the death-warrant 
of Joan Boucher; Rome, accustomed to a cruel indiffer- 
ence to human life, regarded with something like transport 
the sense of pity which had made Nero, when asked to 
affix his signature to an order for execution, exclaim, " How 
I wish that I did not know how to write f' 

It is admitted that no small share of the happiness of 
this period was due to the firmness of the honest Burrus, 
and the wise, high-minded precepts of Seneca. They de- 
serve the amplest gratitude and credit for this happy inter- 
regnum, for they had no easy task to perform. Besides 
the difficulties which arose from the base and frivolous 
character of their pupil, besides the infinite delicacy which 
was requisite for the restraint of a youth who was absolute 
master of such gigantic destinies, they had the task of 
curbing the wild and imperious ambition of Agrippina, and 
of defeating the incessant intrigues of her many powerful 
dependents. Agrippina had no doubt persuaded herself 
that her crimes had beeen mainly committed in the interest 
of her son ; but her conduct showed that she wished him 
to be a mere instrument in her hands. She wished to gov- 
ern him, and had probably calculated on doing so by the 
assistance of Seneca, just as our own Queen Caroline com- 
pletely managed George II. with the aid of Sir Robert 
Walpole. She rode in a litter with him ; without his knowl- 
edge she ordered the poisoning of M. Silanus, a brother of 
her former victim, she goaded Narcissus to death, against 



ii6 SENECA. 

his will; through her influence the Senate was sometimes 
assembled in the palace, and she took no pains to conceal 
from the senators that she was herself seated behind a cur- 
tain where she could hear every word of their deliberations; 
— nay, on one occasion, when Nero was about to give audi- 
ence to an important Armenian legation, she had the audac- 
ity to enter the audience-chamber, and advance to take 
her seat by the side of the Emperor. Every one else was 
struck dumb with amazement, and even terror, at a pro- 
ceeding so unusual ; but Seneca, with ready and admirable 
tact, suggested to Nero that he should rise and meet his 
mother, thus obviating a public sca.ndal under the pretext 
of filial affection. 

But Seneca from the very first had been guilty of a fatal 
error in the education of his pupil. He had governed him 
throughout on the ruinous principle of concessio7i. Nero 
was not devoid of talent ; he had a decided turn for Latin 
versification, and the few lines of his composition which 
have come down to us, biza7'7'e and effected as they are, yet 
display a certain sense of melody and power of language. 
But his vivid imagination was accompained by a want of 
purpose; and Seneca, instead of trying to train him in hab- 
its of serious attention and sustained thought, suffered him 
to waste his best efforts in pursuits and amusements which 
were considered partly frivolous and partly disreputable, 
such as singing, painting, dancing, and driving. Seneca 
might have argued that there was, at any rate, no great 
harm in such employments, and that they probably kept 
Nero out of worse mischief. But we respect Nero the less 
for his indifferent singing and harp-twanging just as we 
respect Louis XVI. less for making very poor locks ; and, if 
Seneca had adopted a loftier tone with his pupil from the 



NERO AND HIS TUTOR. 117 

first, Rome might have been spared the disgraceful folly of 
Nero's subsequent buffooneries in the cities of Greece and 
the theatres of Rome. We may lay it down as an invari- 
able axiom in all high education, that it is 7iever sensible to 
permit what is bad for the supposed sake of preventing 
what is worse. Seneca very probably persuaded himself 
that with a mind like Nero's — the innate worthlessness of 
which he must early have recognised — success of any high 
description would be simply impossible. But this did not 
absolve him from attempting the only noble means by 
which success could, under any circumstances, be attain- 
able. Let us, however, remember that his concessions to 
his pupil were mainly in matters which he regarded as in- 
different — or, at the worst, as discreditable — -rather than as 
criminal ; and that his mistake probably arose from an 
error in judgment far more than from any deficiency in 
moral character. 

Yet it is clear that, even intellectually, Nero was the 
worse for this laxity of training. We have already seen 
that, in his maiden-speech before the Senate, every one 
recognized the hand of Seneca, and many observed with a 
sigh that this was the first occasion on which an Emperor 
had not been able, at lea.st to all appearance, to address 
the Senate in his own words and with his own thoughts. 
Tiberius, as an orator, had been dignified and forcible ; 
Claudius had been learned and poHshed ; even the dis- 
turbed reason of Caligula had not been wanting in a capac- 
ity for delivering forcible and eloquent harangues; but 
Nero's youth had been frittered away in paltry and inde- 
corus accomplishments, v/hich had left him neither time 
nor inclination for weightier and nobler pursuits. 

The fame of Seneca has, no doubt, suffered grieviously 



Ii8 SEX EC A. 

from the subsequent infamy of his pupil ; and it is obvious 
tliat the dishke of Tacitus to his memory is due to his con- 
nexion with Nero. Now, even though the tutor's system 
had not been so wise as, when judged by an inflexible 
standard, it might have been, it is yet clearly unjust to 
make him responsible for the depravity of his pupil; and 
it must be remembered, to Seneca's eternal honour, that the 
evidence of facts, the testimony of contemporaries, and 
even the grudging admission of Tacitus himself, estab- 
lishes in his favour that whatever wisdom and moderation 
characterized the earlier years of Nero's reign were due to 
his counsels ; that he enjoyed the cordial esteem of the 
virtuous Burrus ; that he helped to check the sanguinary 
audacities of Agrippina; that the writings which he ad- 
dressed to Nero, and the speeches which he wrote for him, 
breathed the loftiest counsels ; and that it was not until he 
was wholly removed from power and influence that Nero, 
under the fierce impulses of despotic power, developed 
those atrocious tendencies of which the seeds had Ions 
been latent in his disposition. An ancient vvTiter records 
the tradition that Seneca very early observed in Nero a 
savagery of disposition which he could not wholly eradicate ; 
and that to his intimate friends he used to observe that, 
'• when once the Hon tasted human blood, his innate cruelty 
would return." 

But while we give Seneca this credit, and allow that his 
intentions were thoroughly upright, we cannot but impugn 
his judgment for having thus deliberately adopted the moral- 
ity of expedience ; and we believe that to this cause, more 
than to any other, was due the extent of his failure and the 
misery of his hfe. We may, indeed, be permitted to doubt 
whether Nero himself — a vain and loose youth, the son of 



NERO AND HIS TUTOR. 



T19 



bad parents, and heir to boundless expectations — would, 
under any circumstances, have grown up much better than 
he did ; but it is clear that Seneca might have been held 
in infinitely higher honour but for the share which he had 
in his education. Had Seneca been as firm and wise as 
Socrates, Nero in all probability would not have been 
much worse than Alcibiades. If the tutor had set before 
his pupil no ideal but the very highest, if he had inflexibly 
opposed to the extent of his ability every tendency which 
was dishonourable and wrong, he m\^\. possibly \id.NQ been 
rewarded by success, and_ have earned the indelible grati- 
tude of mankind; and if he had failed he would at least 
have failed nobly, and have carried with him into a calm 
and honourable retirement the respect, if not the aff'ection, 
of his imperial pupil. Nay, even if he had failed completely, 
and lost his life in the attempt, it would have been infinitely 
better both for him and for mankind. Even Homer might 
have taught him that " it is better to die than live in sin." 
At any rate he might have known from study and observa- 
tion that an education founded on compromise must always 
and necessarily fail. It must fail because it overlooks that 
great eternal law of retribution for and continuity in evil, 
which is illustrated by every single history of individuals 
and of nations. And the education which Seneca gave to 
Nero — noble as it was in many respects, and eminent as 
was its partial and temporary success — was yet an educa- 
tion of compromises. Alike in the studies of Nero's boy- 
hood and the graver temptations of his manhood, he acted 
on the foolishly-fatal principle that 

' * Had the wild oat not been sown, 
The soil left barren scarce had grown, 
The grain whereby a man may live. " 



I20 SEX EC A. 

Any Christian might have predicted the result ; one would 
have thought that even a pagan philosopher might have 
been enhghtened enough to obser^^e it. We often quote 
the lines — 

** The cMd is father of the man," 
and 

" Just as the t^ag is bent the tree inclines." 

But the ancients were quite as familiar with the same trath 
under other images. ''The ca.sk," "WTote Horace, "will 
long retain the odour of that which has once been poured 
into it when new." QuintiHan, describing the depraved in- 
fluences which surrounded even the infancy of a Roman 
child, said, " From these djriso. Ji?'st familiarity , then nature^ 
No one has laid down the principle more emphatically 
than Seneca himself Take, for instance, the follo\^dng 
passage from his Letters, on evil conversation. " The 
conversation," he says, '• of these men is very injurious ; 
for, even if it does no immediate harm, it leaves its seeds 
in the mind, and follows us even when we have gone from 
the speakers. — a plague sure to spring up in future resur- 
rection: Just as those who have heard a symphony carry 
in their ears the tune and sweetness of the song which en- 
tangles their thoughts, and does not suffer them to give 
their whole energy to serious matters ; so the conversation 
of flatterers and of those who praise evil things, Hngers 
longer in the mind than the time of hearing it. Nor is 
it easy to shake out of the soul a sweet sound ; it pursues 
us, and lingers with us, and at perpetual intervals recurs. 
Our ears therefore must be closed to evil words, and that 
to the Aery first we hear. For when they have once begun 



NERO AND HIS TUTOR. 121 

and been admitted, they acquire more and more audacity/' 
and so he adds a Httle afterwards, " our days flow on, and 
irreparable Hfe passes beyond our reach," Yet he who 
wrote these noble words was not only a flatterer to his im- 
perial pupil, but is charged with having deliberately encour- 
aged him in a foolish passion for a freedwoman named 
Acte, into which Nero fell. It was of course his duty to re- 
call the wavering aff'ections of the youthful Emperor to his 
betrothed Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, to whom he 
had. been bound by every tie of honour and aff"ection, and . 
his union with whom gave some shadow of greater legiti- 
macy to his practical usurpation. But princes rarely love 
the wives to whom they owe any part of their elevation. 
Henry VII. treated EHzabeth of York with many slights. 
The union of WilHam III. with Mary was overshadowed by 
her superior claim to the royal power ; and Nero from the 
first regarded with aversion, which ended in assassination, 
the poor young orphan girl who recalled to the popular 
memory his slender pretensions to hereditary empire, and 
whom he regarded as a possible rival, if her cowed and 
plastic nature should ever become a tool in the hands of 
more powerful intriguers. But we do not hear of any at- 
tempt on Seneca's part to urge upon Nero the fulfillment of 
this high duty, and we find him sinking into the degraded 
position of an accomplice with young profligates like Otho, 
as the confident of a dishonourable love. Such conduct, 
which would have done discredit to a mere courtier, was to 
a Stoic disgraceful. But the principle which led to it is the 
very principle to which we have been pointing, — the princi- 
ple of moral compromise, the principle of permitting and 
encouraging what is evil in the vain hope of thereby pre- 
venting what is worse. It is hardly strange that Seneca 



122 SENECA. 

should have erred in this way, for compromise was the char- 
acter of his entire hfe. He appears to have set before him- 
self the wholly impossible task of being both a genuine 
philosopher and a statesman under the Caesars. He prided 
himself on being not only a philosopher, but also a man of 
the world, and the consequence was, that in both capaci- 
ties he failed. It was as true in Paganism as it is in Chris- 
tianity, that a man must make his choice between duty and 
interest — between the service of Mammon and the service 
of God. No man ever gained anything but contempt and 
ruin by incessantly halting between two opinions. 

And by not taking that lofty line of duty which a Zeno or 
an Antisthenes would have taken, Seneca became more or 
less involved in some of the most dreadful events of Nero's 
reign. Every one of the terrible doubts under which his 
reputation has suffered arose from his having permitted the 
principle of expedience to supercede the laws of virtue. 
One or two of these events we must briefly narrate. 

We have already pointed out that the Nemesis which for 
so many years had been secretly dogging the footsteps of 
AgrippinlNmade her tremble under the weight of its first 
cruel blows when she seemed to have attained the highest 
summit of her ambition. Very early indeed Nero began to 
be galled and irritated by the insatiate assumption and 
swollen authority of " the best of mothers." The furious 
reproaches which she heaped upon him when she saw in 
Acte a possible rival to her power drove him to take refuge 
in the facile and unphilosophic worldhness of Seneca's con- 
cessions, and goaded him almost immediately afterwards 
into an atrocious crime. He naturally looked on Britanni- 
cus, the youthful son of Claudius, with even more suspicion 
and hatred than that with v^diich he regarded Octavia. 



NERO AND HIS TUTOR. 123 

Kings have rarely been able to abstain from acts of severity 
against those who might become claimants to the throne. 
The feelings of King John towards Prince Arthur, of Henry 
IV. towards the Earl of March, of Mary towards Lady Jane 
Grey, of Elizabeth towards Mary Stuart, of King James to- 
v/ards Lady Arabella Stuart, resembled, but probably by no 
means equalled in intensity, those of Nero towards his kins- 
man and adoptive brother. To show him any affection 
was a dangerous crime, and it furnished a sufficient cause 
for immediate removal if any attendant behaved towards 
him v\ath fidelity. Such a line of treatment foreshadowed 
the catastrophe which was hastened by the rage of Agiip- 
pina. She would go, she said, and take with her to the 
camp the noble boy who was now of fuU age to undertake 
those imperial duties which a usurper was exercising in 
virtue of crimes which she was now prepared to confess. 
Then let the mutilated Burrus and the glib-tongued Seneca 
see whether they could be a match for the son of Claudius 
and the daughter of Germanicus. Such language, uttered 
with violent gestures and furious imprecations, might well 
excite the alarm of the timid Nero. And that alarm was 
increased by a recent circumstance, which shovv^ed that all 
the ancestral spirit was not dead in the breast of Britanni- 
cus. During the festivities of the Saturnalia, which were 
kept by the ancients with all the hilarity of the modern 
Christmas, Nero had been elected by lot as " governor of 
the feast," and, in that capacity, was entitled to issue his 
orders to the guests. To the others he issued trivial man- 
dates which would not make them blush; but Britannicus 
in violation of every principle of Roman decorum, was or- 
dered to stand up in the middle and sing a song. The 
boy, inexperienced as yet even in sober banquets, and 



124 SENECA. 

wholly unaccustomed to drunken convivialities, might well 
have faltered ; but he at once rose, and with a steady voice 
began a strain — probably the magnificent wail of Androm- 
ache over the fall of Troy, which has been preserved to us 
from a lost play of Ennius — in which he indicated his own 
disgraceful ejection from his hereditary rights. His cour- 
age and his misfortunes woke in the guests a feeling of pity 
which night and wine made them less careful to disguise. 
From that moment the fate of Britannicus was sealed. Lo- 
custa, the celebrated poisoner of ancient Rome, was sum- 
moned to the councils of Nero to get rid of Britannicus, as 
she had already been summoned to those of his mother 
when she wished to disembarrass herself of Britannicus's 
father. The main difficulty was to avoid discovery, since 
nothing was eaten or drunk at the imperial table till it had 
been tasted by the pj^cegustator. To avoid this difficulty a 
very hot draught was given to Britannicus, and when he 
wished for something cooler a swift and subtle poison was 
dropped into .the cold water with which it was tempered. 
The boy drank, and instantly sank from his seat, gasping 
and speechless. The guests started up in consternation, 
and fixed their eyes on Nero. He with the utmost coolness 
assured them that it was merely a fit of epilepsy, to which 
his brother was accustomed, and from which he would soon 
recover. The terror and agitation of Agrippina showed to 
every one that she at least was guiltless of this dark deed; 
but the unhappy Octavia, young as she was, and doubly ter- 
rible on every ground as the blow must have been to her, 
sat silent and motionless, having already learnt by her mis- 
fortunes the awful necessity for suppressing under an im- 
passive exterior her affections and sorrows, her hopes and 
fears. In the dead of night, amid storms and murky rain, 



NERO AXD HIS TUTOR. 125 

which were thought to indicate the wrath of heaven, the 
last of the ^audii was hastily and meanly hurried into a 
dishonourable grave. 

We may believe that in this crime Seneca had no share 
whatever, but we can hardly believe that he was ignorant 
of it after it had been committed, or that he had no share 
in the intensely hypocritical edict in which Nero bewailed 
the fact of his adoptive brother's death, excused his hur- 
ried funeral, and threw himself on the additional indulgence 
and protection of the Senate. Nero showed the conscious- 
ness of guilt by the immense largesses w^hich he distributed 
to the most powerful of his friends. " Nor were there want- 
ing men," says Tacitus, in a most significant manner, 
''''who accused certain people.^ 7ioto7' ions for their highprofess- 
io?is, of having at that period divided among the77i villas a/id 
houses as though they had bee7i so 77iuch spoilt There can 
hardly be a doubt that the great historian intends by this 
remark to point at Seneca, to whom he tries to be fair, but 
whom he could never quite forgive for his share in the dis- 
graces of Nero's reign. That avarice was one of Seneca's 
temptations is too probable ; that expediency was a guiding 
principle of his conduct is but too evident ; and for a man 
with such a character to rebut an inuendo is never an easy 
task. Nay more, it was after this foul event, at the close 
of Nero's first year, that Seneca addressed him in the ex- 
travagant and glowing language of his treatise on Clemency. 
" The quality of mercy," and the duty of princes to practise 
it, has never been more eloquently extolled ; but it is accom- 
panied by a fulsome flattery which has in it something 
painfully grotesque as addressed by a philosopher to one 
whom he knew to have been guilty, that very year, of an 
inhuman fratricide. Imagine some Jewish Pharisee, — a 



126 SENECA, 

Nicodemus or a Gamaliel — pronouncing an eulogy on the 
tenderness of a Herod, and you have some picture of the 
appearance which Seneca's consistency must have worn in 
the eyes of his contemporaries. 

This event took place a. d. 55, in the first year of Nero's 
Qiiinquennium^ and the same year was nearly signalized by 
the death of his mother. A charge of pretended conspiracy 
was invented against her, and it is probable that but for 
the intervention of Burrus, who with Seneca was appointed 
to examine into the charge, she would have fallen a very 
Ludden victim to the cowardly credulity and growing hatred 
of her son. The extraordinary and eloquent audacity of 
her defence created a reaction in her favour, and secured 
the punishment of her accusers. But the ties of affection 
could not long unite two such v/icked and imperious natures 
as those of Agrippina and her so.i. All history shows that there 
can be no real love between souls exceptionally wicked, and 
that this is still more impossible when the alliance between 
them has been sealed by a comphcity in crime. Nero had 
now fallen into a deep infatuation for Poppaea Sabina, the 
beautiful wife of Otho, and she refused him her hand so long 
as he was still under the control of his mother. At this time 
Agrippina, as the just consequence of her many crimes, was 
regarded by all classes with a fanaticism of hatred which in 
Poppaea Sabina was intensified by manifest self-interest. 
Nero, always weak, had long regarded his mother with real 
torror and disgust, and he scarcely needed the urgency of 
constant application to make him long to get rid of her. 
But the daughter of Germanicus could not be openly de- 
stroyed, while her own precautions helped to secure her 
against secret assassination. It only remain ded to compass 
her death by treachery. Nero had long compelled lier to 



XERO AXD HIS TUTOR. 127 

live in suburban retirement, and had made no attempt to 
conceal the open rupture which existed between them. 
Anicetus, admiral of the fleet at ]Misenum, and a former 
instructor of Nero, suggested the expedient of a pretended 
public reconciliation, in virtue of which Agrippina should 
be invited to Baise, and on her return should be placed on 
board a vessel so constructed as to come to pieces by the 
removal of bolts. The disaster might then be attributed 
to a mere naval accident, and Nero might make the most, 
ostentatious display of his affection and regret. 

The invitation was sent, and a vessel specially decorated 
was ordered to await her movements. But, either from 
suspicion or from secret information, she declined to avail 
herself of it, and was conveyed to Baige in a litter. The 
effusion of hypocritical affection with which she was received,, 
the unusual tenderness and honour with which she was 
treated, the earnest gaze, the warm embrace, the varied, 
conversation, removed her suspicions, and she consented to 
return in the vessel of honour. As though for the purpose 
of revealing the crime, the night was starry and the sea 
calm. The ship had not sailed far, and Crepereius Gallus, 
one of her friends, was standing near the helm, while a lady 
named Acerronia was seated at her feet as she reclined, 
and both were vieins: with each other in the warmth of 
their congratulations upon the recent interview, when a 
crash was heard, and the canopy abo^'e them which had 
been weighted with a quantity of lead, was suddenly let go. 
Crepereius was crushed to death upon the spot ; Agrippina 
and Acerronia were saved by the projecting sides of the 
couch on which they were resting ; in the hurry and alarm, 
as accomphces were mingled with a greater number who 
were innocent of the plot, the machinery of the treacherous 



128 SENECA 

vessel failed. Some of the rowers rushed to one side of the 
ship, hoping in that manner to sink it, but here too their 
councils were divided and confused. Acerronia, in the 
selfish hope of securing assistance, exclaimed that she was 
Agrippina, and was immediately despatched with oars and 
poles; Agrippina, silent and unrecognized, received a wound 
upon the shoulder, but succeeded in keeping herself afloat 
till she was picked up by fishermen and carried in safety to 
her villa. 

The hideous attempt from which she had been thus mi- 
raculously rescued did not escipe her keen intuition, accus- 
tomed as ic was to deeds of guilt; but, seeing that her only 
chance of safety rested in dissimulation and reticense, she 
sent her freedman Agerinus to tell her son that by the mer- 
cy of heaven she had escaped from a terrible accident, but 
to beg him not to be alarmed, and not to come to see her 
because she needed rest. 

The news filled Nero with the wildest terror, and the ex- 
pectation of an immediate revenge. In horrible agitation 
and uncertainty he instantly required the presence of Burrus 
and Seneca. Tacitus doubts whether they may not have 
been already aware of what he had attempted, and Dion, to 
whose gross calumnies, however, we need pay no attention, 
declares that Seneca had frequently urged Nero to the 
deed, either in the hope of overshadowing his own guilt, or 
of involving Nero in a crime which should hasten his most 
speedy destruction at the hands of gods and men. In the 
absence of all evidence we may with perfect confidence 
acquit the memory of these eminent men from having gone 
so far as this. 

It must have been a strange and awful scene. The 
young man, for Nero was but twenty-two year old, poured 



NERO AND HIS TUTOR. 129 

into the ears their tumult of his agitation and alarm. White 
with fear, weak with dissipation, and tormented by the 
furies of a guilty conscience, the wretched youth looked from 
one to another of his aged ministers. A long and painful 
pause ensued. If they dissuaded him in vain from the 
crime which he meditated their lives would have been in 
danger ; and perhaps they sincerely thought that things had 
gone so far that, unless Agrippina were anticipated, Nero 
would be destroyed. Seneca was the first to break that 
silence of anguish by inquiring of Burrus v^^hether the sol- 
diery could be entrusted to put her to death. His reply was 
that the praetorians would do nothing against a daughter of 
Germanicus) and that Anicetus should accomplish what he 
had promised. Anicetus showed himself prompt to crime, 
and Nero thanked him in a rapture of gratitude. While 
the freedman Agerinus was delivering to Nero his mother's 
message, Anicetus dropped a dagger at his feet, declared 
that he had caught him in the very act of attempting the 
Emperor's assassination, and hurried off with a band of sol- 
diers to punish Agrippina as the author of the crime. 

The multitude meanwhile were roaming in wild excite- 
ment along the shore ; their torches were seen glimmering 
in evident commotion about the scene of the calamity, 
where some were wading into the vv^ater in search of the 
body, and others were shouting incoherent questions and 
rephes. At the rumour of Agrippina's escape they rushed 
off in a body to her ^dlla to express their congratulations, 
where they were dispersed by the soldiers of Anicetus, who 
liad already token possession of it. Scattering or seizing 
the slaves who came in their way, and bursting their passage 
from door to door, they found the Empress in a dimly-lighted 
chamber, attended only by a single handmaid. "Dost 



I30 SENECA. 

thou too desert me ?" exclaimed the wretched woman to her 
servant, as she rose to slip away. In silent determination 
the soldiers surrounded her couch, and Anicetus was the 
first to stike her with a stick. " Strike my womb," she cried 
to him faintly, as he drew his sword, '' for it bore Nero." 
The blow of Anicetus was the signal for her immediate de- 
struction : she was dispatched with many wounds, and was 
buried that night at Misenum on a common couch and 
with a mean funeral. Such an end, many years previously, 
this sister, and wife, and mother of emperors had anticipated 
and depised; for when the Chaldaeans had assured her 
that her son would become Emperor, and would murder 
her, she is said to have exclaimed, " Occidat dum imperet," 
" Let him slay me if he but reign." 

It only remained to account for the crime, and offer for 
it such lying defences as were most likely to gain credit. 
Flying to Naples from a scene which had now become 
awful to him, — for places do not change as men's faces 
change, and, besides this, his disturbed conscience made 
him fancy. that he heard from the hill of Misenum the blow- 
ing of a ghostly trumpet and wailings about his mother's 
tomb in the hours of night, — he sent from thence a letter 
to the Senate, saying that his mother had been punished 
for an attempt upon his life, and adding a list of her crimes, 
real and imaginary, the narrative of her <2^^z^^;?/(^/ shipwreck, 
and his opinion that her death was a public blessing. The 
author of this shameful document was Seneca, and in com- 
posing it he reached the nadir of his moral degradation. 
Even the lax morality of a most degenerate age condemned 
him for calmly sitting down to decorate with the graces of 
rhetoric and antithesis an atrocity too deep for the powers 
of indignation. A Seneca could stoop to write what a 



NERO AXD HIS TUTOR. 131 

Thrasea Paetus could scarcely stoop to hear ; for in the 
meeting of the Senate at which the letter was recited, 
Thrasea rose in indignation, and went straight home rather 
than seem to sanction by his presence the adulation of a 
matricide. 

And the composition of that guily, elaborate, shameful 
letter was the last prominent act of Seneca's pubHc Hfe. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END 



Nor was it unnatural that it should be. Moral precepts, 
philosophic guidance were no longer possible to one whose 
compliances or whose timidity had led him so far as first to 
sanction matricide, and then to defend it. He might in- 
deed be still powerful to recommend principles of common 
sense and political expediency, but the loftier lessons of 
Stoicism, nay, even the better utterances of a mere ordinary 
Pagan morahty, could henceforth only fall from his lips 
with something of a hollow ring. He might interfere, as 
we know he did, to render as innocuous as possible the 
pernicious vanity which made Nero so ready to degrade his 
imperial rank by public appearances on the orchestra or in 
the race-course, but he could hardly address again such 
noble teachings as that of the treatise on Clemency to one 
whom, on grounds of poUtical expediency, he had not dis- 
suaded from the treacherous murder of a' mother, who, 
whatever her enormities, yet for his sake had sold her very 
soul. 

Although there may have been a strong suspicion that 
foul play had been committed, the actual facts and details 
of the death of Agrippina would rest between Nero and 
Seneca as a guilty secret, in the guilt of which Seneca him- 



THE BEGINXIXG OF THE EXD. 133 

self must have his share. Such a position of things was the 
inevitable death-blow, not only to all friendship, but to all 
confidence, and ultimately to all intercourse. We see in 
sacred history that Joab's participation in David's guilty 
secret gave him the absolute mastery over his own sover- 
eign ; we see repeatedly in profane history that the mutual 
knowledge of some crime is the invariable cause of deadly 
hatred between a subject and a king. Such feelings as 
King John may be supposed to have had to Hubert de 
Burgh, or King Richard III. to Sir James Tyrrel, or King 
James I. to the Earl of Somerset, such probably, in still 
more virulent intensity, were the feelings of Nero towards 
his whilome " guide, philosopher, and friend." 

For Nero very soon learnt that Seneca was no longer 
necessaiy to him. For a time he lingered in Campania, guiltily 
dubious as to the kind of reception that awaited him in the 
capital. The assurances of the vile crew which surrounded 
him soon made that fear wear off, and when he plucked up 
the courage to return to his palace, he might himself have 
been amazed at the effusion of infamous loyalty and venal 
acclamation with which he was received. All Rome 
poured itself forth to meet him; the Senate appeared in 
festal robes with their wives and girls and boys in long 
array; seats and scaffoldings were built up along the road 
by which he had to pass, as though the populace had gone 
forth to see a triumph. With haughty mein, the victor of 
a nation of slaves, he ascended the Capitol, gave thanks to 
the gods, and went home to betray henceforth the full per- 
versity of a nature which the reverence for his mother, such 
as it was, had hitherto in part restrained. But the instincts 
of the populace were suppressed rather than eradicated. 
They hung a sack from his statue by night in allusion to the 



134 SENECA. 

old punishment of parricides, who were sentenced to be 
ilung into the sea, tied up in a sack with a serpent, a mon- 
key, and a cock. They exposed an infant in the Forum 
with a tablet on which was written, " I refuse to rear thee, 
lest thou shouldst slay thy mother." They scrawled upon 
the blank walls of Rome an iambic line which reminded 
all who read it that Nero, Orestes, and Alcmaeon were mur- 
derers of their mothers. Even Nero must have been well 
aware that he presented a hideous spectacle in the eyes of 
all who had the faintest shade of righteousness among the 
people whom he ruled. 

All this took place in a. d. 59, and we hear no more of 
Seneca till the year 62, a year memorable for the death of 
Burrus, who had long been his honest, friendly, and faith- 
ful colleague. In these dark times, when all men seemed 
to be speaking in a whisper, almost every death of a con- 
spicuous and high-minded man, if not caused by open vio- 
lence, falls under the suspicion of secret poison. The 
death of Burrus may have been due (from the description) 
to diphtheria, but the popular voice charged Nero with 
having hastened his death by a pretended remedy, and 
declared that, when the Emperor visited his sick bed, the 
dying man turned away from his inquiries with the laconic 
answer, " I am well." 

His death was regretted, not only from the memory of 
his virtues, but also from the fact that Nero appointed two 
men as his successors, of whom the one, Fenius Rufus, 
was honorable but indolent ; the other and more power- 
ful, Sofonius Tigellinus had won for himself among cruel 
and shameful associates a pre-eminence of hatred and of 
shame. 

However faulty and inconsistent Seneca may ]la^'e been, 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 135. 

there was at any rate no possibility that he should divide 
with a Tigellinus the direction of his still youthful master. 
He was by no means deceived as to the position in which 
he stood, and the few among Nero's followers in whom any 
spark of honour was left informed him of the incessant cal- 
umnies which were used to undermine his influence. Tig- 
ellinus and his friends dwelt on his enormous wealth and 
his magnificent villas and gardens, which could only have 
been acquired with ulterior objects, and which threw into 
the shade the splendour of the Emperor himself. They 
tried to kindle the inflammable jealousies of Nero's feeble 
mind by representing Seneca as attempting to rival him in 
poetry, and as claiming the entire credit of his eloquence, 
while he mocked his divine singing, and disparaged his ac- 
compHshments as a harper and charioteer because he him- 
self was unable to acquire them. Nero, they urged was a 
boy no longer ; let him get rid of his schoolmaster, and find 
sufiicient instruction in the example of his ancestors. 

Foreseeing how such arguments must end; Seneca re- 
quested an interview with Nero ; begged to be suff"ered to 
retire altogether from public life ; pleaded age and increas- 
ing infirmities as an excuse for desiring a calm retreat ; and 
off"ered unconditionally to resign the wealth and honours 
which had excited the cupidity of his enemies, but which 
were simply due to Nero's unexampled fiberality during the 
eight years of his government, towards one whom he had 
regarded as a benefactor and a friend. But Nero did not 
choose to let Seneca escape so lightly. He argued that, 
being still young, he could not spare him, and that to 
accept his ofters would not be at all in accordance with his 
fame for generosity. A proficient in the imperial art of 
hiding detestation under deceitful blandishments, Nero 



136 SEXECA. 

ended the interview \\ith embraces and assurances of 
friendship. Seneca thanked him — the usual termination, 
as Tacitus bitterly adds, of interviews with a ruler — but 
nevertheless altered his entire manner of life, forbade his 
friends to throng to his levees, avoided all companions, and 
rarely appeared in public — wishing it to be believed that he 
was suffering from weak health, or was wholly occupied in 
the pursuit of philosophy. ' He well knew the arts of 
courts, for in his book on Anger he has told an anecdote of 
one who, being asked how he had managed to attain so 
rare a gift as old age in a palace, repHed, " By submitting 
to injuries, and returning thanks for thon^ But he must 
have known that his life hung upon a thread, for in the 
very same year an attempt was made to involve him in a 
charge of treason as one of the friends of C. Calpurnius 
Piso, an illustrious nobleman whose wealth and ability made 
him an object of jealousy and suspicion, though he was 
naturally unambitious and devoid of energy. The attempt 
failed at the time, and Seneca was able triumphantly to re- 
fute the charge of any treasonable design. But the fact of 
such a charge being made showed how insecure was the 
position of any man of eminence under the deepening 
t3Tanny of Nero, and it precipitated the conspiracy which 
t^vo years afterwards was actually formed. 

Not long after the death of Burrus, when Nero began to 
add sacrilege to his other crimes, Seneca made one more 
attempt to retire from Rome ; and, when permission was a 
second time refused, he feigned a severe illness, and con- 
fined himself to his chamber. It was asserted, and 
believed, that about this time Nero made an attempt to 
poison him by the instrumentahty of his freedman Cleoni- 
cus, which was only defeated by the confession of an ac- 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 137 

complice or by the abstemious habits of the philosopher 
•who now took nothing but bread and fruit, and never 
quenched his thirst except out of the running stream. 

It was during those two years of Seneca's seclusion and 
disgrace that an event happened of imperishable interest. 
On the orgies of a shameful court, on the supineness of a 
degenerate people, there burst — as upon the court of 
Charles II. — a sudden lightning- flash of retribution. In 
its character, in its extent, in the devastation and anguish 
of which it was the cause, in the improvements by which it 
was followed, in the lying origin to which it was attributed, 
even in the- general circumstances of the period and char- 
acter of the reign in which it happened, there is a close 
and singular analogy between the Great Fire of London in 
1666 and the Great Fire of Rome in 64. Beginning in the 
crowded part of the city, under the Palatine and Cselian 
Hills, it raged, first for six, and then again for three days, 
among the inflammable material of booths and shops, and 
driven along by a furious wind, amid feeble and ill-directed 
efforts to check its course, it burst irresistibly over palaces, 
temples, and porticoes, and amid the narrow tortuous 
streets of old Rome, involving in a common destruction the 
most magnificent works of ancient art, the choicest manu- 
scripts of ancient litterature, and the most venerable monur 
ments of ancient superstition. In a few touches of inimit- 
able compression, such as the stern genius of the Latin 
language permits, but which are too condensed for direct 
translation, Tacitus has depicted the horror of the scene, — 
waihng of panic-stricken women, the helplessness of the 
very aged and the very young, the passionate eagerness for 
themselves and for others, the dragging along of the feeble 
or the waiting for them, the lingering and the hurry, the 



138 SENECA. 

common and inextricable confusion. Many, while they 
looked backward, were cut off by the flames in front or at 
the sides ; if they sought some neighboring refuge, they 
found it in the grasp of the conflagration ; if they hurried 
to some more distant spot, that too was found to be 
involved in the same calamity. At last, uncertain what to 
seek or what to avoid, they crowded the streets, they lay 
huddled together in the fields. Some, having lost all their 
possessions, died from the want of daily food ; and others, 
who might have escaped died of a broken heart from 
the anguish of being bereaved of those whom they had 
been unable to rescue ; while, to add to the universal hor- 
ror, it was believed that all attempts to repress the flames 
were checked by authoritive prohibition ; nay more, that 
hired incendiaries were seen flinging firebrands in new 
directions, either because they had been bidden to do so, or 
that they might exercise their rapine undisturbed. 

The historians and anecdotists of the time, whose ac- 
counts must be taken for what they are worth, attribute to 
Nero the origin of the conflagration ; and it is certain that 
he did not return to Rome until the fire had caught the gal- 
leries of his palace. In vain did he use every exertion to 
assist the homeless and ruined population; in vain did he 
order food to be sold to them at a price unprecedentedly 
low, and throw open to them the monuments of Agrippa, 
his own gardens, and a multitude of temporary sheds. A 
rumour had been spread that, during the terrible unfolding 
of that great " flower of flame," he had mounted to the 
roof of his distant villa, and delighted with the beauty of the 
spectacle, exulting in the safe sensation of a new excitement, 
had dressed himself in theatrical attire, and sung to his harp 
a poem on the burning of Troy. Such a heartless mixture 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 139 

of buffoonery and affectation had exasperated the people 
too deeply for forgiveness, and Nero thought it necessary to 
draw - off the general odium into a new channel, since 
neither his largesses nor any other popular measures suc- 
ceeded in removing from himself the ignominy of this ter- 
rible suspicion. What follows is so remarkable, and, to a 
Christian reader, so deeply interesting, that I will give it in 
the very words of that great historian whom I have been so 
closely following. 

" Therefore, to get rid of this report, Nero trumped up 
an accusation against a sect, detested for their atrocities, 
whom the common people called Christians, and inflicted on 
them the most recondite punishments. Christ, the founder 
of this sect, had been capitally punished by the Procurator 
Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius j and this damnable 
superstition, repressed for the present, was again breaking 
out, not only through Judaea, where the evil originated, but 
even through the City, whither from all regions all things 
that are atrocious or shameful flow together and gain a fol- 
lowing. Those, therefore, were first arrested who confessed 
their religion, and then on their evidence a vast multitude 
were condemned, not so much on the charge of incendiarism, 
as for their hatred towards the human race. And mockery 
was added to their death ; for they were covered in the 
skins of wild beasts and were torn to death by dogs, or 
crucified, or set apart for burning, and after the close of the 
day were reserved for the purpose of nocturnal illumina- 
tion. Nero lent his own gardens for the spectacle, and 
gave a chariot-race, mingling with the people in the cos- 
tume of a charioteer, or driving among them in his chariot; 
by which conduct he raised a feeling of commiseration 
towards the sufferers, guilty though they were, and deserv- 



i40 SENECA. 

ing of the extremest penalties, as though they were being 
exterminated, not for the pubHc interests, but to gratify the 
savage cruelty of one man." 

Such are the brief but deeply pathetic particulars which 
have come down to us respecting the first great persecution 
of the Christians, and such must have been the horrid 
events of which Seneca was a contemporary, and probably 
an actual eye-witness, in the very last year of his life. Pro- 
foundly as, in all likelihood he must have despised the very 
name of Christian, a heart so naturally mild and humane as 
his must have shuddered at the monstrous cruelties devised 
against the unhappy votaries of this new religion. But to 
the relations of Christianity with the Pagan world we shall 
return in a subsequent chapter and we must now hasten 
to the end of our biography. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE DEATH OF SENECA. 



The false charge which had been brought against Seneca, 
and in which the name of Piso had been involved, tended 
to urge that nobleman and his friends into a real and formida- 
ble conspiracy. Many men of influence and distinction 
joined in it, and among others Annseus Lucanus, the celebra- 
ted poet-nephew of Seneca, and Fenius Rufus the colleague 
of Tigellinus in the command of the imperial guards. The 
plot was long discussed, and many were admitted into the 
secret, which was nevertheless marvellously well kept. One 
of the most eager conspirators was Subrius Flavus, an officer 
of the guards, who suggested the plan of stabbing Nero as 
he sang upon the stage, or of attacking him as he went 
about without guards at night in the galleries of his burning 
palace. Flavus is even said to have cherished the design 
of subsequently murdering Piso likewise, and of offering 
the imperial power to Seneca, with the full cognisance of 
the philosopher himself* However this may have been 
— and the story has no probabiHty — many schemes were 
discussed and rejected, from the difficulty of finding a man 
sufficiently bold and sufficiently in earnest to put his own life 
to such imminent risk. While things were still under 
discussion, the plot was nearly ruined by the informa- 
tion of Volusius Proculus, an admiral of the fleet, to 
* See Juv. Sat. viii, 212. 



142 SEX EC A. 

whom it had been mentioned by a freedwoman of the 
name of Ephicharis. Although no sufficient evidence 
could be adduced against her, the conspirators thought 
it ad^asable to hasten matters, and one of them, a sen- 
ator named Scsevinus, undertook the dangerous task of 
assassination. Plautius Lateranus, the cousul-elect, was to 
pretend to offer a petition, in which he was to embrace the 
Em.peror's knees and throw him to the ground, and then 
Scsevinus was to deal the fatal, blow. The theatrical con- 
duct of Scce^'inus — who took an antique dagger from the 
Temple of Safety, made his will, ordered the dagger to be 
sharpened, sat down to an unusually luxurious banquet, 
manumitted or made presents to Jiis slaves, showed great 
agitation, and finally ordered ligaments for wounds to be 
prepared, — awoke the suspicions of one of his freedmen 
named MiHchus, who hastened to claim a reward for reveal- 
ing his suspicions. Confronted with Milichus, Scsevinus 
met and refuted his accusations with the greatest firmness j 
but when Mihchus mentioned among other things that, the 
day before, Scaevinus had held a long and secret conver- 
sation \\dth another friend of Piso named NataHs, and when 
Natalis, on being summoned, gave a very different account 
of the subject of this conversation from that which Scaevinus 
had given, they were both put in chains ; and, unable to 
endure the threats and the sight of tortures, revealed the 
entire conspiracy. Natafis was the first to mentioned the 
name of Piso, and he added the hated name of Seneca, 
either because he had been the confidential messenger be- 
tween the two, or because he knew that he could not do a 
greater favour to Nero than by giving him the opportunity 
of injuring a man whom he had long sought every possible 
opportunity to crush. Scaevinus, with equal weakness, per- 



THE DEATH OF SENECA. 143 

haps because he thought that Natalis had left nothing to 
reveal, mentioned the names of the others, and among 
them of Lucan, whose comphcity in the plot would un- 
doubtedly tend to give greater probability to the supposed 
guilt of Seneca. Lucan, after long denying all knowledge 
of the design, corrupted by the promise of impunity, was 
guilty of the incredible baseness of making up for the slow- 
ness of his confession by its completeness, and of naming 
among the conspirators his chief friend Gallus and Pollio, 
and his own mother Atilla. The woman Ephicharis, slave 
though she had once been, alone showed the slightest con- 
stancy, and, by her brave unshaken reticence under the 
most excruciating and varied tortures, put to shame the 
pusillanimous treachery of senators and knights. On the 
second day, when, with limbs too dislocated to admit of 
her standing, she was again brought to the presence of her 
executioners, she succeeded, by a sudden movement, in 
strangling herself with her own girdle. 

In the hurry and alarm of the moment the sHghtest show 
of resolution would have achieved the object of the con- 
spiracy. Fenius Rufus had not yet been named among the 
conspirators, and as he sat by the side of the Emperor, and 
presided over the torture of his associates, Subrius Flavus 
made him a secret sign to inquire whether even then and 
there he should stab Nero. Rufus not only made a sign of 
dissent, but actually held the hand of Subrius as it was 
grasping the hilt of his sword. Perhaps it would have been 
better for him if he had not done so, for it was not hkely 
that the numerous conspirators would long permit the same 
man to be at once their accomplice and the fiercest of their 
judges. Shortly afterwards, as he w^as urging and threat- 
ening, Scaevinus remarked, with a quiet smile, "that nobody 



144 SEX EC A. 

knew more about the matter than he did himself, and that 
he had better show his gratitude to so excellent a prince by 
telling all he knew." The confusion and alarm of Rufus 
betrayed his consciousness of guilt ; he was seized and 
bound on the spot, and subsequently put to death. 

I^^Ieanwhile the friends of Piso were urging to take some 
bold and sudden step, which, if it did not succeed in retrie\ang 
his fortunes, would at least shed lustre on his death. But his 
somewhat slothful nature, weakened still further by a luxur- 
ious life, was not to be aroused, and he calmly awaited the end. 
It was customery among the Roman Emperors at this 
period to avoid the disgrace and danger of public execu- 
tions by sending a messenger to a man's house, and order- 
ing him to put himself to death by whatever means he pre- 
ferred. Some raw recruits — for Nero dared not intrust any 
veterans with the duty — brought the mandate to Piso, who 
proceeded to make a will full of disgraceful adulation 
towards Nero opened his veins, p.nd died. Plautius Later- 
anus was not even allowed the poor privilege of choosing 
his own death, but, without time even to embrace his child- 
ren, was hurried off to a place set apart for the punishment 
of slaves, and there died, without a word, by the sword of 
a tribune whom he knew to be one his own accomplices. 

Lucan, in the prime of his life and the full bloom of his 
genius, was believed to have joined the plot from his indig- 
nation at the manner in which Nero's jealousy had repressed 
his poetic fame, and forbidden him the opportunity of pub- 
he rectitations. He too opened his veins ; and as he felt 
the deathful chill creeping upwards from the extremities of 
his limbs, he recited some verses from his own " Pharsaha," 
in which he had described the similar death of the soldier 
Lycidas. They were his last words. His mother Atilla, 



THE DEATH OF SENECA. 145 

whom to his everlasting infamy, he had betrayed, was 
passed over as a victim too insignificant for notice, and was 
neither pardoned nor punished. 

But, of all the many deaths which were brought about by 
this unhappy and ill-managed conspiracy, none caused more 
delight to Nero than that of Seneca, whom he was now able 
to dispatch by the sword, since he had been unable to do 
so by secret poison. What share Seneca really had in the 
conspiracy is unknown. If he were really cognisant of it, 
he must have acted with consummate tact, for no particle 
of convincing evidence was adduced against him. All that 
even Natahs could relate was, that when Piso had sent him 
to complain to Seneca of his not admitting Piso to more of 
his intercourse, Seneca had replied " that it was better for 
them both to hold aloof from each other, but that his own 
safety depended on that of Piso." A tribune was sent to 
ask Seneca as to the truth of this story, and found, — which 
was in itself regarded as a suspicious circumstance, — that 
on that very day he had returned from Campania to a villa 
four miles from the city. The tribune arrived in the even- 
ing, and surrounded the villa with soldiers. Seneca was at 
supper, with his wife Paulina and two friends. He entirely 
denied the truth of the evidence, and said that " the only 
reason which he had assigned to Piso for seeing so little of 
him was his weak health and love of retirement. Nero, 
who knew how Httle prone he was to flattery, might judge 
whether or no it was likely that he, a man of consular rank, 
would prefer the safety of a man of private station to his 
own." Such was the message which the tribune took back 
to Nero, whom he found sitting with his dearest and most 
detestable advisers, his wife Poppaea and his minister Tigel- 
linus. Nero asked '' whether Seneca was preparing a vol- 



146 SEXECA. 

untary death." On the tribune repl}dng that he showed no 
gloom or terror in his language or countenance, Nero 
ordered that he should at once be bidden to die. The mess- 
age was taken, and Seneca, mthout any sign of alarm, 
quietly demanded leave to revise his will. This was 
refused him, and he then turned to his friends with the remark 
that, as he was unable to reward their merits as they had 
deserved, he would bequeath to them the only, and yet the 
most precious, possession left to him, namely, the example 
of his life, and if they were mindful of it they would vAn the 
reputation alike for integrity and for faithful friendship. At 
the same time he checked their tears, sometimes by his con- 
versation, and sometimes with serious reproaches, asking 
them "where were their precepts of philosophy, and where 
the fortitude under trials which should have been learnt 
from the studies of many years ? Did not every one know 
the cruelty of Nero ? and what was left for him to do but to 
make an end of his master and tutor after the murder of his 
mother and his brother?" He then embraced his wife Pau- 
lina, and, with a slight faltering of his lofty sternness, 
begged and entreated her not to enter on an endless sorrow, 
but to endure the loss of her husband by the aid of those 
noble consolations which she must derive from the contem- 
plation of his virtuous life. But Pauhna declared that she 
would die with him, and Seneca, not opposing the deed 
v/hich would win her such permanent glory, and at the same 
time unwilling to leave her to future wrongs, yielded to her 
v>dsh. The veins of their arms were opened by the same blow ; 
but the blood of Seneca, impoverished by old age and tem- 
perate Hving, flowed so slowly that it was necessary also to 
open the veins of his legs. This mode of death, chosen by 
the Romans as comparatively painless, is in fact under cer- 



THE DEATH OF SENECA. 147 

tain circumstances most agonizing. Worn out by these 
cruel tortures, and unwilling to weaken his wife's fortitude 
by so dreadful a spectacle, glad at the same time to spare 
himself the sight of her sufferings, he persuaded her to go 
to another room. Even then his eloquence did not fail. It 
is told of Andre Chenier, the French poet, that on his way 
to execution he asked for writing materials to record some 
of the strange thoughts which filled his mind. The wish 
was denied him, but Seneca had ample liberty to record his 
last utterances. Amanuenses were summoned, who took 
down those dying admonitions, and in the time of Tacitus 
they still were extant. To us, however, this interesting 
memorial of a Pagan deathbed is irrevocably lost. 

Nero, meanwhile, to whom the news of these circum- 
stances was taken, having no dislike to Pauhna, and 
unwilling to incur the odium of too much bloodshed, ordered 
her death to be prohibited and her wounds to be bound. 
She was already unconscious, but her slaves and freedmen 
succeeded in saving her life. She lived a few years longer, 
cherishing her husband's memory, and bearing in the 
attenuation of her frame, and the ghastly pallor of her coun- 
tenance, the lasting proofs of that deep affection which had 
characterised their married life. 

Seneca was not yet dead, and, to shorten these protracted 
and useless sufferings, he begged his friend and physician 
Statins Annaeus to give him a draught of hemlock, the same 
poison by which the great philosopher of Athens had been 
put to death. But his Hmbs were already cold, and the 
draught proved fruitless. He then entered a bath of hot 
water, sprinkUng the slaves who stood nearest to him, with 
the words that he was pouring a libation to Jupiter the Lib- 



14S SEXECA. 

erator.* Even the warm water failed to make the blood 
flow more speedily, and he was finally carried into one of 
those vapour baths which the Romans called siidatoj-ia^ and 
stifled with its steam. His body was burned privately, 
without any of the usual ceremonies. Such had been his 
own wish, expressed, not after the fall of his fortunes, but at 
a time when his thoughts had been directed to his latter end, 
in the zenith of his great wealth and conspicuous power. 

So died a Pagan philosopher, whose life must always ex- 
cite our interest and pity, although we cannot apply to him 
the titles of great or good. He was a man of high genius, 
of great susceptibility, of an ardent and generous tempera- 
ment, of far-sighted and sincere humanity. Some of his 
sentiments are so remarkable for their moral beauty and 
profundity that they forcibly remind us of the expressions of 
St. Paul. But Seneca fell infinitely short of his own high 
standard, and has contemptuously been called ''the father 
of all them that wear shovel hats." Inconsistency is written 
on the entire history of his life, and it has earned him the 
scathing contempt \vith which many writers have treated his 
memory. '• The business of a philosopher," says Lord 
Macaulay, in his most scornful strain, "was to declaim in 
praise of poverty, with two milhons sterling out at usury ; to 
meditate epigrammatic conceits about the e\dls of luxury in 
gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns ; to rant about 
liberty while fawning on the insolent and pampered freed- 
men of a tyrant ; to celebrate the di\dne beauty of -sdrtue 
with the same pen which had just before written a defence 
of the murder of a mother by a son." " Seneca," says Nie- 

* Sicco Polentone, an Italian, who ^^Tote a Life of Seneca (d, 1461), 
makes Seneca a secret Christian, and represents this as an invocation of 
Christ, and says that he baptized himself with the water of the bath ! 



THE DEATH OF SENECA. 149 

buhr, " was an accomplished man of the world, who occu- 
pied himself very much with virtue, and may have con- 
sidered himself to be an ancient Stoic. He certainly be- 
lieved that he was a most ingenious and virtuous philoso- 
pher ; but he acted on the principle that, as far as he him- 
self was concerned, he could dispense with the laws of 
morality which he laid down for others, and that he might 
give way to his natural propensities. 

In Seneca's life, then, we see as clearly as in those of 
many professing Christians that it is impossible to be at 
once worldly and righteous. Seneca's utter failure was due 
to the vain attempt to combine in his own person two oppo- 
site characters — that of a Stoic and that of a courtier. 
Had he been a true philosopher, or a mere courtier, he 
would have been happier, and even more respected. To be 
both was absurd : hence, even in his writings, he was 
driven into inconsistency. He is often compelled to aban- 
don the lofty utterances of Stoicism, and to charge philo- 
sophers with ignoronce of life. In his treatise on a Happy 
Life he is obliged to introduce a sort of indirect autobio- 
graphical apology for his wealth and position.* In spite of 
his lofty pretensions to simplicity, in spite of that sort of 
amateur asceticism which, in common with other wealthy 
Romans, he occasionally practised, in spite of his final offer 
to abandon his entire patrimony to the Emperor, we fear 
that he cannot be acquitted of an almost insatiable avarice. 
We need not indeed believe the fierce calumnies which 
charged him with exhausting Italy by a boundless usury, 
and even stirring up a war in Britain by the severity of his 
exactions ; but it is quite clear that he deserved the title of 
Frcedives^ " the over-wealthy," by which he has been so 
* See Ad. Polyb. 37 : Ep. T^; De Vit. Beat. 17, 18, 22. 



150 SENECA. 

pointedly signalized. It is strange that the most splendid 
intellects should so often have sunk under the slavery of 
this meanest vice. In the Bible we read how the "rewards 
of divination" seduced from his allegiance to God the 
splendid enchanter of Mesopotamia : 

' ' In outline dim and vast 

Their fearful shadows cast 
The giant form of Empires on their way 

To ruin : — one by one 

They tower and they are gone, 
Yet in the prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay. 

" No sun or star so bright. 

In all the world of light, 
That they should draw to heaven his downward eye : 

He hears the Almighty's word, 

He sees the angel's sword, 
Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie." 

And in Seneca we see some of the most glowing pictures 
of the nobility of poverty combined with the most question- 
able avidity in the pursuit of wealth. Yet how completely 
did he sell himself for naught. It is the lesson which we 
see in every conspicuously erring life, and it was illustrated 
less than three years afterwards in the terrible fate of the 
tyrant who had driven him to death. For a short period of 
his life, indeed, Seneca was at the summit of power; yet, 
courtier as he was, he incurred the hatred, the suspicion, 
and the punishment of all the three Emperors during whose 
reigns his manliood was passed. " Of all unsuccessful 
men," says Mr. Froude, "in every shape, whether divine or 
human, or deviUsh, there is none equal to Bunyan's Mr. 
Facing-both-ways — the fellow with one eye on heaven and 
one on earth — who sincerely preaches one thing and sfn- 
cerely does another, and from the intensity of his unreaUty 



THE DEATH OF SENECA, 151 

is unable either to see or feel the contradiction. He is sub- 
stantially ttying to cheat both God and the devil, and is in 
reality only cheating himself and his neighbours. This of 
all characters upon the earth appears to us to be the one of" 
which there is no hope at all, a charecter becoming in 
these days alarmingly abundant; and the aboundance of 
which makes us find even in a Reineke an inexpressible 
rehef." And, in point of fact, the inconsistency of 
Seneca's Hfe was a conscious inconsistency. " To the 
student," he says, "who professes his wish to rise to a 
loftier grade of virtue, \ would answer that this is my 
wish also, but I dare not hope it. / am preoccupied 
with vices. All I require of myself is, ?iot to be equal to 
the best, but only to be better than the bad.'' No doubt 
Seneca meant this to be understood merely formodest 
depreciation; but it was far truer than he would have 
liked seriously to confess. He must have often and deeply 
felt that he was not living in accordance with the light 
which was in him. 

It would indeed be cheap and easy, to attribute the gen- 
eral inferiority and the many shortcomings of Seneca's 
Hfe and character to the fact that he was a Pagan, and to 
suppose that if he had known Christianity he would neces- 
sarily have attained to a loftier ideal. But such a style 
of reasoning and inference, commonly as it is adopted for 
rhetorical purposes, might surely be refused by any intelli- 
gent child. A more intellectual assent to the lessons of 
Christianity would have probably been but of Httle 
avail to inspire in Seneca a nobler Hfe. The fact is, that 
neither the gift of genius nor the knowledge of Christianity 
are adequate to the ennoblement of the human heart, nor 
does the grace of God flow through the channels of sur- 



152 SENECA, 

passing intellect or of orthodox belief. Men there have been 
in all ages, Pagan no less than Christian, who with scanty 
mental enlightenment and spiritual knowledge have yet 
lived holy and noble lives : men there have been in all ages. 
Christian no less than Pagan, who with consummate gifts 
and profound erudition have disgraced some of the noblest 
words which ever were uttered by some of the meanest 
lives which were ever lived. In the twelfth century was 
there any mind that shone more brightly, was there any 
eloquence which flowed more mightily, than that of Peter 
Abelard ? Yet Abelard sank beneath the meanest of his 
scholastic cotemporaries in the degradation of his career as 
much as he towered above the highest of them in the grand- 
eur of his genius. In the seventeenth century was there 
any philosopher more profound, any moraUst more elevated, 
than Francis Bacon ? Yet Bacon could flatter a tyrant, 
and betrayed a friend, and receive a bribe, and be one of 
the latest of English judges to adopt the brutal expedient 
of enforcing confession by the exercise of torture. If 
Seneca defended the murder of Agrippina, Bacon black- 
ened the character of Essex. "What I would I do not; 
but the thing that I would not, that I do," might be the 
motto for many a confession of the sins of genius ; and 
Seneca need not blush if we compare him with men who 
were his equals in intellectual power, but whose " means of 
grace," whose privileges, whose knowledge of the truth, 
were infinitely higher than his own. Let the noble con- 
stancy of his death shed a light over his memory which may 
dissipate something of those dark shades which rest on por- 
tions of his history. We think of Abelard, humble, silent, 
patient, God-fearing, tended by the kindly-hearted Peter in 
the peaceful gardens of Clugny ; we think of Bacon, neg- 



THE DEATH OF SENECA. 153 

lected, broken, and despised, dying of the chill caught in a 
philosophical experiment and leaving his memory to the 
judgment of posterity; let us think of Seneca, quietly yield- 
ing to his detiny without a murmur, cheering the con- 
stancy of the mourners round him during the long agonies 
of his enforced suicide and dictating some of the purest 
utterances of Pagan wisdom almost with his latest breath. 
The language of his great contemporary, the Apostle St. 
Paul, will best help us to understand his position. He was 
one of those who was seeki?tg the Lord, if haply he might 
feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far fro?n 
every one of zis : for in Him we live, and move, and have 
our being. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SENECA AND ST. PAUL. 

In the spring of the year 6i, not long after the time when 
the murder of Agrippina, and Seneca's justifications of it, 
had been absorbing the attention of the Roman world, 
there disembarked at Puteoli a troop of prisoners, whom 
the Procurator of Judaea had sent to Rome under the 
charge of a centurion. Walking among them, chained and 
weary, but affectionately tended by two younger compan- 
ions,* and treated with profound respect by Httle deputa- 
tions of friends who met him at Appii Forum and the 
Three Taverns, was a man of mean presence and weather- 
beaten asjDect, who was handed over like the rest to the 
charge of Burrus, the Praefect of the Praetorian Guards. 
Learning from the letters of the Jewish Procurator that 
the prisoner had been guilty of no serious offence, f but 
had used his privilege of Roman citizenship to appeal to 
Caesar for protection against the infuriated maHce of his 
co-religionists — possibly also having heard from the cen- 
turion JuHus some remarkable facts about his behaviour 
and history — Burrus allowed him, pending the hearing of 
his appeal, to Hve in his own hired apartments. J This 

* Luke and Aristarchus. t Acts xxiv. 23, xx\'ii. 3. 

JActs xxviii. 30, iv i8icp fxidBoa/j-ari. ^ 



SENECA AND ST. PAUL. 155 

lodging was in all probability in that quarter of the city 
opposite the island in the Tiber, which corresponds to the 
modern Trastevere. It was the resort of the very lowest and 
meanest of the populace — that promiscuous jumble of all 
nations which makes Tacitus call Rome at this time " the 
sewer of the universe." It was here especially that the 
Jews exercised some of the meanest trades in Rome, seUing 
matches, and old clothes, and broken glass, or begging ar^i 
fortune-telUng on the Cestian or Fabrican bridges.* In 
one of these narrow, dark, and dirty streets, thronged by 
the dregs of the Roman populace, St. Mark and St. Peter 
had in all probabihty lived when they founded the Httle 
Christian Church at Rome. It was was undoubtedly in the 
same despised locality that St. Paul, — the prisoner who had 
been consigned to the care of Burrus, — hired a room, sent 
pt\ for the principle Jews, and for two years taught to Jews and 
Christians, to any Pagans who would Hsten to him, the 
doctrines which were destined to regenerate the world. 

Any one entering that mean and dingy room would have 
seen a Jew vnth. bent body and furrowed countenance, and 
mth every appearance of age, weakness, and disease 
chained by the arm to a Roman soldier. But it is impossi- 
ble that, had they deigned to look closer, they should not 
also have seen the gleam of genius and enthusiasm, the fire 
of inspiration, the serene light of exalted hope and daunt- 
less courage upon those \^dthered features. And though 
he was chained, " the Word of God was not chained." f 
Had they listened to the words which he occasionally dic- 

* Mart. Ep. i 42 : Juv. xiv. 186. In these few paragraphs I follow 
M. Aubertin, who fas well as many other authors) hes collected many 
of the principal passages in which Roman writers allude to the Jews 
and Christians. 1 2 Tim. ii. 9. 



156 SENECA. 

tated, or overlooked the large handwriting which alone his 
weak eyesight and bodily infirmities, as well as the incon- 
venience of his chains, permitted, they would have heard or 
read the immortal utterances which strengthened the faith 
of the nascent and strugghng Churches in Ephesus, Phihppi, 
and Colossi, and which have since been treasured among 
the most inestimable possessions of a Christian vv orld. 

His efforts were not unsuccessful; his misfortunes were 
for the furtherance of the Gospel; his chains were manifest 
" in all the palace, and in all other places;"* and many 
waxing confident by his bonds were much more bold to 
speak the word ^vithout fear. Let us not be misled by 
assuming a wrong explanation of these words, or by adopt- 
ing the Middle Age traditions which matde St. Paul con- 
vert some of the immediate favourites of the Emperor, 
and electrify with his eloquence an admiring Senate. The 
word here rendered " palace "f may indeed have that 
meaning, for we know tliat among the early converts were 
"they of Caesar's household ;" ± but these were in all proba- 
bility — if not certainly — Tews of the lowest rank, who were, 
as \vQ know, to be found among the Imndj-eds of unfortu- 
nates of every age and country who composed a Roman 
familia. And it is at least equally probable that the word 
"praetorium" simply means the barrack of that detachment 
of Roman soldiers from which Paul's gaolers were taken in 
turn. In such labours St. Paul in all probability spent two 
years (6i — 63), during which occurred the divorce of Octavia, 
the marriage with Poppsea, the death of Burrus, the disgrace 
of Seneca, and the many subsequent infamies of Nero. 

* Phil. i. 12. 

fir oAoj rcj Ttpairaopiw. 

it Phil. iv. 22, 



■ SENECA AND ST. PAUL. 157 

It is out of such piaterials that some early Christian 
forger thought it edifying to compose the work which is 
supposed to contain the correspondence of Seneca and St. 
Paul. The undoubted spuriousness of that work is now 
universally admitted, and indeed the forgery is too clumsy 
to be even worth reading. But it is worth while inquiring 
whether in the circumstances of the time there is even a 
bare possibility that Seneca should ever have been among 
the readers or the auditors of Paul. 

And the answer is, There is absolutely no such proba- 
bility. A vivid imagination is naturally attracted by the 
points of contrast and resemblance offered by tv/o such 
characters, and we shall see that there is a singular hkeness 
between many of their sentiments and expressions. But 
this was a period in which, as M. Villemain observes, " from 
one extremity of the social world to the other truths met 
each other without recognition." Stoicism, noble as were 
many of its precepts, lofty as was the morality it professed, 
deeply as it was imbued in many respects with a semi- 
Christians piety, looked upon Christianity with profound 
contempt. The Christians disliked the Stoics, the Stoics 
despised and persecuted the Christians. "The world knows 
nothing of its greatest men." Seneca would have stood 
aghast at the very notion of his receiving the lessons, still 
more of his adopting the religion, of a poor, accused, and 
wandering Jew. The haughty, wealthy, eloquent, pros- 
perous, powerful philosopher would have smiled at the no- 
tion that any future ages would suspect him of having bor- 
rowed any of his polished and epigrammatic lessons of phil- 
osophic morals or religion from one whom, if he heard of 
him, he would have regarded as a poor wretch, half fanatic 
and half barbarian. 



158 SENECA. 

We learn from St. Paul himself that the early converts of 
Christianity were men in the very depths of poverty,* and 
that its preachers were regarded as fools, and weak, and 
were despised, and naked, and buffeted — persecuted and 
homeless labourers — a spectacle to the world, and to angels, 
and to men, "made as the filth of the earth and the off- 
scouring of all things." We know that their preaching was 
to the Greeks " foolishness," and that, when they spoke of 
Jesus and the resurrection, their hearers mockedf and jeered. 
And these indications are more than confirmed by many 
contemporary passages of ancient writers. We have already 
seen the violent expressions of hatred which the ardent a id 
high-toned soul of Tacitus thought applicable to the Chris- 
tians ; and such language is echoed by Roman writers of 
every character and class. The fact is that at this time and 
for centuries afterwards the Romans regarded the Christians 
with such lordly indifference that — like Festus, and Felix 
and Seneca's brother Gallio — they never took the trouble 
to distinguish them from the Jews. The distinction was 
not fully realized by the Pagan world till the cruel and 
wholesale massacre of the Christians by the pseudo-Messiah 
Barchochebas in the reign of Adrian opened their eyes to 
the fact of the irreconcilable differences which existed be- 
tween the two religions. And pages might be filled mth 
the ignorant and scornful allusions which the heathen 
applied to the Jews. They confused thern with the whole 
degraded mass of Egyptian and Oriental impostors and 
brute-worsliippers ; they disdained them as seditious, turbu- 
lent, obstinate, and avaricious; they regarded ♦them as 

* 2 Cor. \'iii. 2. 

^'Ex^sva^or, Acts XAdi. 32. The word expresses the most profound 
and unconceared contempt. "^ 



SENECA AND ST. PAUL. 159 

mainly composed of the very meanest slaves out of the gross 
and abject multitude; their proselytism they considered as 
the cladestine initiation into some strange and revolting 
mystery, which involved as its direct teachings contempt of 
the gods, and the negation of all patriotism and all family 
affection; they firmly believed that they worshipped the 
head of an ass ; they thought it natural that none but the 
vilest slaves and the silliest woman should adopt so misan- 
thropic and degraded a superstition; they characterized 
their customs as " absurd, sordid foul, and depraved," and 
their nation as " prone to superstition, opposed to relig- 
ion." * And as far as they made any distinction between 
Jews and Christians, it was for the latter that they reserved 
their choicest and most concentrated epithets of hatred and 
abuse. A "new," "pernicious," "detestable," "execrable," 
superstition is the only language with which Suetonius and 
Tacitus vouchsafe to notice it. Seneca,^ — though he must 
have heard the name of Christian during the reign of Clau- 
dius (when both they and the Jews were expelled from 
Rome, " because of their perpetual turbulence, at the insti- 
gation of Chrestus," as Suetonius ignorantly observed), and 
during the Neronian persecution — never once alludes to 
them, and only mentions the Jews to apply a few co]i- 
temptuous remarks to the idleness of their sabbaths, and to 
call them " a most abandoned race." 

The reader ^vill now judge whether there is the slightest 
probability that Seneca had any intercourse with St. Paul, 
or was likely to have stooped from his superfluity of wealth, 
and pride of power, to talve lessons from obscure and 
despised slaves in the purlieus inhabited by the crowded 
households of Caesar or Narcissus. 

* Tac. Hist. i. 13 : ib. v. 5 : Juv. xiv. 85 : Pers. v, 190, &c. 



CHAPTER XV. 

skneca's resemblances to scripture. 

And yet in a very high sense of the word Seneca may be 
called, as he is called in the title of this book, a Seeker after 
God; and the resemblances to the sacred writings which 
may be found in the pages of his works are numerous and 
striking. A few of these will probably interest our readers, 
and will put them iii a better position for understanding 
how large a measure of truth and enlightenment had re- 
warded the honest search of the ancient philosophers. We 
will place a few such passages side by side with the texts of 
Scripture which they resemble or recall. 

I. God's Indwelling Presence. 

" Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that 
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ?" asks St. Paul (i Cor. iii. 
16). 

" God is 7iear you, is with you, is zvithin you^' writes 
Seneca to his friend Lucihus, in the 41st of those Letters 
which abound in his most valuable moral reflections; "^ 
sacred Spirit dwells within us, the obse7^ver and guardian of 
all our evil aftd our good . . . there is no good man without 
Godr 



SENECA'S RESEMBLENCE TO SCRIPTURE. i6i 

And again {Ep. 73) : ^'- Do you wonder that man goes to 
the gods ? God comes to men : nay, zuhat is yet nearer, He 
comes into men. No good mind is holy without God.'^ 

2. The Eye of God. 

" All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him 
with whom we have to do." (Heb. iv. 13.) 

" Pray to thy Father which is in secret ; and thy Father 
which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." (Matt. vi. 

6.) 

Seneca ( On Providence, i) : '"' It is no advantage that con- 
science is shut withiji us ; we lie opeii to God.'' 

Letter 83 : " What advantage is it that anythi?ig is hid- 
den fro7n man 2 N'othiiig is closed to God: He is present 
to our minds, and enters into our central thoughts!' 

Letter ?>-t^ : " We must live as if we were living iji sight of 
all men ; we must think as though some one could and ca?i 
gaze ifito our inmost breastT 

3. God is a Spirit. 

St. Paul, ^' We ought not to think that the God-head is 
like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's 
device." (Acts xvii. 29.) 

Seneca {^Letter 31) : '' Eve7ifro7n a corner it is possible to 
sp7'i7ig up ijito heaven : rise, therefore, and form thyself into a 
fashion worthy of God ; thou canst not do this, however, ivith 
gold and silver : an image like to God camiot be- foi-med out 
of such materials as these." 



1 62 SEX EC A. 

4. Imitating God. 

" Be ye therefore followers ( ^ij-it^rai, imitators) of God, 
as dear children." (Eph. v. i.) 

" He that in these things [righteousness, peace, joy in the 
Holy Ghost] serveth Christ is acceptable to God." (Rom. 
xir. 18.) 

Seneca {Letter 95) : ^^ Do you wish to rende}' the gods pro- 
pitious ? Be virtuous. To honour them it is enough to imi- 
tate them.'' 

Letter 124: ^^ Let ma?i aim at the good which belojigs to 
him. What is this good 1 A mijid reformed and pure., the 
imitator of God., raising itself above things hiwian., confining 
all its desires withi?i itself 

5. Hypocrites like ivhited Sepulchres. 

" Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hj^ocrites ! for 
ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear 
beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, 
and of all uncleanness." (Matt, xxiii. 27.) 

Seneca : " Those whom yoiL regard as happy ^ if you saw 
the?n, not in their exter?ials, but in their hidden aspect, are 
wretched, sordid, base ; like their aw7i walls ador?ied out- 
wardly. It is 710 solid and genui?ie felicity ; it is a plaster, 
and that a thifi one ; a?id so, as long as they cati stand and 
be seen at their pleasure, they shine and impose on us : when 
anything has filleji 7uhich disturbs and uncovers the?n, it is 
evidefit how much deep and real foulness an extraneous 
splendour has co?icealed'' 



SENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE. 163 
6. Teaching compared to Seed. 

" But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit ; 
some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold." 
(Matt xiii. 8.) 

Seneca (Letter 38) : " Words must be sown like seed; 
which, althozigh it be s 172 all, when it hath foimd a suitable 
ground, unfolds its strength^ and from very sinall size is ex- 
panded into the largest increase. Reason does the same. . . 
The things spoken are few ; but if the mind have received 
them well, they gain strength and grow. ''^ 

7. All Men are Sinners, 

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves 
and the truth is not in us." (i John i. 8.) 

Seneca ( On Anger, i. 14, ii. 27) : ^^ If we wish to be fust 
judges of all things, let us first persuade ourselves of this : — 
that there is not one of us without fault. . . . No man is 
found who cati acquit himself ; and he who calls hijnself in- 
7iocent does so with reference to a witness, and not to his con- 
science y 

- 8, Avarice. 

"The love of money is the root of all evil" (i Tim. vi. 

10.) 

Seneca ( On Tranqidlliiy of Soul, 8) / " Riches. . . . the 
greatest source of human trouble l^ 

" Be content with such things as ye have." (Heb. xiii. 
5.) 



i64 SENECA. 

" Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content" 
(i Tim. vi. 8.) 

Seneca {Letter 114): " We shall be wise if we desire btcf 
little ; if each ma7i takes count of himself and at the same 
time measures his own body, he will k?tow how little it can 
contain, and for how sJiort a time^ 

Letter no: " We have polenta, we have water; let us 
challenge Jupiter himself to a compariso7i of bliss T 

" Godliness with contentment is great gain." (i Tim. vi. 
6.) 

Seneca {Letter no) : " Why are you struck with wonder 
and astonishment ? It is all display / Those things are 
shown, not possessed. . . . Tur/i thyself rather to the true 
riches, learn to be content with little T 

" It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 
needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of 
God." (Matt xix. 24.) 

Seneca {Letter 20) : " He is a high-souled man who sees 
riches spread around him, and /lears rat/ier than feels thai 
they are his. It is much not to be corrupted by fellowship 
with riches : great is he who in the midst of wealth is poor, 
but safer he who has no wealth at all.'' 

9. The Duty of Kindness. 

" Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly 
love." (Rom. xii. 10.) 

- Seneca ( On Anger, i. 5) : " Man is born for mutual as- 
sistance." 

" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Lev. xiv. 

18.) 



SENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE. 165 

Letter 48 : " You must live for afioiher^ if you wish to live 
for yourself 

On Anger, iii. 43 : " While we are among men let us cul- 
tivate kindness ; let us not be to any man a cause either of 
peril or of fear l^ 

10. Our common Membership. 

" Ye are the body of Christj and members in particular." 
(i Cor. xiL 27.) 

" We being many are one body in Christ, and every one 
members one of another." (Rom. xii. 5.) 

Seneca {Letter 95) : ^' L>o we teach that he should stretch 
his hand to the shipwrecked, show his path to the wanderer^ 
divide his bread with the hungry 2 . . . when I could briefly 
deliver to him the formula of human duty : all this that you 
see, in which things divine and human are included, is one : 
we are members of one great bodyT 

1 1. Secrecy in doi?ig Good. 

^' Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doetli." 
(Matt vL 3.) 

Seneca i^O?i Benefits, ii. 11): ^^ Let hi7n who hath con- V' 
fer7'ed a favour ^.old %is tongue. . . . Ln conferring a favour 
7iotliing shotild be more avoided than pride T 

12. God' s impartial Goodness. 

^' He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the 
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust" 
(Mait V. 45.) 



1 66 SENECA. 

-^' Seneca {On Ben^ts, i. i) : ^'' How many are wiworfhy 
of the light! and yet the day dawns" 

Id. vii. 31: " The gods begin to confer benefits on those 
who recognize the^n not, tluy conti?me them to those who are 
thajikless for them. . . . They distribute their blessings jn 
ijnpartial tenor through the nations and peoples ; . . they 
sprinkle the earth with timely showers, they stir the seas with 
wi?id, they ma7'k out the seasons by the revolutioji of the con- 
stellatiofis, they temper the winter and siC77iJ?ier by the inter- 
vention of a gentler air" 

It would be a needless task to continue these parallels, 
because by reading any treatise of Seneca a student might 
add to them by scores ; and they prove incontestably that, 
as far as moral illumination was concerned, Seneca " was 
not far from the kingdom of heaven." They have been 
collected by several ^vriters ; and all of these here adduced, 
together with many others, may be found in the pages of 
Fleury, Troplong, Aubertin, and others. Some authors, 
like M. Fleury, have/ endeavoured to show that they can 
only be accounted for by the supposition that Seneca had 
some acquaintance with the sacred vv^ritings. M. Aubertin, 
on the other hand, has conclusively demonstrated that this 
could not have been the case. Many words and expres- 
sions detached from their context have been fofced into a 
resemblance with the words of Scripture, when the context 
wholly militates against its spirit ; many belong to that 
great common stock of moral truths which had been elab- 
orated by the conscientious labours of ancient philosophers ; 
and there is hardly one of the thoughts so eloquently enun- 
ciated which may not be found even more nobly and more 
distinctly expressed in the writings of Plato and of Cicero. 



SENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE. 167 

In a subsequent chapter we shall show that, in spite of them 
all, the divergences of Seneca from the spirit of Christianity 
are at least as remarkable as the closest of his resemblances ; 
but it will be more convenient to do this when we have also 
examined the doctrines of those two other great represen- 
tatives of spiritual enlightenment in Pagan souls, Epictetus 
the slave and Marcus AureHus the emperor. 

Meanwhile, it is a matter for rejoicing that writings sucj\^ 
as these give us a clear proof that in all ages the Spirit of 
the Lord has entered into holy men, and made them sons 
of God and prophets. God ' ' left not Himself without wit|^ 
ness " among them. The language of St. Thomas Aquinas, 
that many a heathen has had an " implicit faith," is but 
another way of expressing St. Paul's statement that "not 
having the law they were a law unto themselves, and showed 
the work of the law written in their hearts."* To them the 
Eternal Power and Godhead were known from the things 
that do appear, and alike from the voice of consience and 
the voice of nature they derived a true, although a partial 
and inadequate, knowledge. To them "the Voice of nature 
was the voice of God." Their revelation was the law of 
nature, which was confirmed, strengthened, and extended, 
but not suspended, by the v/ritten law of God.j 

The knowledge thus derived, i.e. the sum-total of relig- 
ious impressions resulting from the combination of reason 
and experience, has been called "natural religion;" the 
term is in itself a convenient and unobjectionable one, so 
long as it is remembered that natural religion is itself a reve- 
lation. No antithesis is so unfortunate and pernicious as 
that of natural with revealed rehgion. It is " a contrast 
rather of words than of ideas ; it is an opposition of ab- 
* Rom. i. 2. -i- Hooker, Ecd. Pol. iii. 8. 



168 SEN EC A. 

stractions to which no facts really correspond." God has 
revealed Himself, not in one but in many ways, not only by 
inspiring the hearts of a few, but by vouchsafing His guid- 
ance to all who seek it. "The spirit of man is the candle 
of the Lord," and it is not religion but apostasy to deny the 
reaHty of any of God's revelations of truth to m.an, merely 
because they have not descended through a single channel. 
On the contrary, we ought to hail with gratitude, instead of 
viewing with suspicion, the enunciation by heathen writers 
of truths which we might at first sight have been disposed 
to regard as the special heritage of Christianity. In Pytha- 
goras, and Socrates, and Plato, — in Seneca, Epictetus, and 
Marcus Aurelius — we see the Hght of heaven struggling its 
impeded way through clouds of darkness and ignorance ; 
we thankfully recognize that the souls of men in the Pagan 
world, surrounded as they were by perplexities and dangers, 
were yet enabled to reflect, as from the dim surface of sil- 
ver, some image of what was divine and true ; we hail, with 
the great and eloquent Bossuet, "The Christianity of 
Nature." "The divine image m man," says St. Bernard, 
" may be burned, but it cannot be burnt out." 

And this is the pleasantest side on which to consider the 
life and the writings of Seneca. It is true that his style 
partakes of the defects of his age, that the brilliancy of his 
rhetoric does not always compensate for the defectiveness 
of his reasoning ; that he resembles, not a mirror which 
clearly reflects the truth, but " a glass fantastically cut into 
a thousand spangles ;" that side by side with great moral 
truths we sometim.es find his worst errors, contradictions, 
and paradoxes ; that his eloquent utterances about God 
often degenerate into a vague Pantheism ; and that even on 
the doctrine of immortality his hold is too slight to save 



SEXECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE. 169 

him from waverings and contradictions ;* yet as a moral 
teacher he is full of real greatness, and was often far in ad- 
vance of the general opinion of his age. Few men have 
written more finely, or with more evident sincerity, about 
truth and courage, about the essential equality of man,"}" 
about the duty of kindness and consideration to slaves,:]: 
about tenderness even in dealing with sinners, § about the 
glory of unselfishness,|| about the great idea of humanity^ 
as something which transcends all the natural and artificial 
prejudices of countr}'- and of caste. Many of his writings 
are Pagan sermons and moral essays of the best and high- 
est type. The style, as QuintiHan says, " abounds in delight- 
ful faults," but the strain of sentiment is never otherwise 
than high and true. 

He is to be regarded rather as a wealthy, eminent, and 
successful Roman, who devoted most of his leisure to moral 
philosophy, than as a real philosopher by habit and profes- 
sion. And in this point of view his very inconsistencies 
have their charm, as illustrating his ardent, impulsive, im- 
aginative temperament. He- was no apathetic, self-con- 
tained, impassible Stoic, but a passionate, warm-hearted 
man, who could break into a flood of unrestrained tears at 
the death of his friend Annseus Serenus,** and feel a tremb- 
Hng sohcitude for the welfare of his wife and little ones. 
His was no absolute renunciation, no impossible perfec- 
tion ;tt but few men have painted more persuasively, with 
deeper emotion, or more entire conviction, the pleasures of 

* Consol. ad Polyb. 27 ; Ad Helv. 17 ; Ad Marc. 24, seqq. 
t Ep. 32 ; De Benef. iii. 2. % De Ira, iii. 29, 32. 

§ Ibid. i. 14 ; De Vit. beat, 24. 1| Ep. 55,9. 
t Ibid. 28 ; De Oti Sapientis, 31. 

** Ep. 63. tt Martha, Les Moralistes, p. 61. 



I70 SENECA. 

virtue, the calm of a well-regulated soul, the strong and 
severe joys of a lofty self-denial. In his youth, he tells us, 
he was preparing himself for a righteous life, in his old age 
for a noble death.* And let us not forget, that when the 
hour of crisis came which tested the real calm and bravery 
of his soul, he was not found wanting. " With no dread," 
he writes to Lucilius, " I am preparing myself for that day 
on which, laying aside all artifice or subterfuge, I shall be 
able to judge respecting myself whether I merely speak or 
really feel as a brave man should ; whether all those words 
of haughty obstinacy which I have hurled against fortune 

were mere pretence and pantomime Disputations 

and literary talks, and words collected from the precepts of 
philosophers, and eloquent discourse, do not prove the true 
strength of the soul. For the mere speech of even the most 
cowardly is bold ; what you have really achieved will then 
be manifest when your end is near. I accept the terms, I 
do not shrink from the decision."! 

" AcciHo conditio?iem^ non refonnido Judicrum." They 
were courageous and noble words, and they were justified 
in the hour of trial. When we remember the sins of Sene- 
ca's life, let us recall also the constancy of his death; while 
we admit the inconsistencies of his systematic philosophy, 
let us be grateful for the genius, the enthusiasm, the glow of 
intense conviction, with which he clothes his repeated ut- 
terance of truths, which, when based upon a surer basis, 
were found adequate for the moral regeneration of the 
world. Nothing is more easy than to sneer at Seneca, or to 
write clever epigrams on one whose moral attainments fell 
infinitely short of his own great ideal. But after all he was 
not more inconsistent than thousands of those who con- 
* Ep. 6i t Ep. 26. 



SEA' EC A' S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE. 171 

demn him. With all his faults he yet lived a nobler and a 
better life, he had loftier aims, he was braver, more self- 
denying — nay, even more consistent — than the majority of 
professing Christians. It would be well for us all if those 
who pour such scorn upon his memory attempted to achieve 
one tithe of the good which he achieved for humanity and 
for Rome. His thoughts deserve our imperishable grati- 
tude : let him who is without siii among us be eager to 
fling stones at his failures and his sins ! 



EPICTETUS. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE LIFE OF EPICTETUS, AND HOW HE REGARDED IT. 

In the court of Nero, Seneca must have oeen thrown into 
more or less communication with the powerful freedmen of 
that Emperor, and especially with his secretary or librarian, 
Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus was a constant companion of 
the Emperor ; he was the earliest to draw Nero's attention 
to the conspiracy in which Seneca himself perished. There 
can be no doubt that Seneca knew him, and had visited at 
his house. Among the slaves who thronged that house, the 
natural kindliness of the philosopher's heart may have 
drawn his attentions to one Uttle lame Phrygian boy, de- 
formed and mean-looking, whose face — if it were any index 
of the mind within — must even from boyhood have worn a 
serene and patient look. The great courtier, the great 
tutor of the Emperor, the great Stoic and favourite writer of 
his age, would indeed have been astonished if he had been 
suddenly told that that wretched-looking httle slave-lad was 
destined to attain purer and clearer heights of philosophy 
than he himself had ever done, and to become quite as il- 
lustrious as himself, and far more respected as an exponent 
of Stoic doctrines. For that lame boy was Epictetus — 



HIS LIFE, AND HOW HE REGARDED IT. 173 

Epictetus for whom was -written the memorable epitaph : " I 
was Epictetus, a slave, and maimed in body, and a beggar 
for poverty, and dear to the iimnortahr 

Although we have a clear sketch of his philosophical doc- 
trines, we have no materials whatever for any but the most 
meagre description of his life. The picture of his mind — 
an effigy of that which he alone regarded as his true self — 
may be seen in his works, and to this we can add httle ex- 
cept a few general facts and uncertain anecdotes. 

Epictetus was probably born in about the fiftieth year of 
the Christian era; but we do not know the exact date of 
his birth, nor do we even know his real name. " Epicte- 
tus" means "bought" or "acquired," and is simply a servile 
designation. He was born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, a town 
between the rivers Lycus and Meander, and considered by 
some to be the capital of the province. The town possessed 
several natural wonders — sacred springs, stalactite grottoes, 
and a deep cavern remarkable for its mephitic exlialations. 
It is more interesting to us to know that it was within a few 
miles of Coiossse aad Laodicea, and is mentioned by St. 
Paul (Col. iv. 13) in connexion with those two cities. It 
must, therefore, have possessed a Christian Church from the 
earliest times, and, if Epictetus spent any part of his boy- 
hood there, he might have conversed with men and women 
of humble rank who had heard read in their obscure placs 
of meeting the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians, and 
the other, now lost, which he addressed to the Church of 
Laodicea.* 

It is probable, however, that Hierapolis and its associa- 
tions produced very little i.ifluence on the mind of Epicte- 
tus. His parents wer : p ;ople in the very lowest and hum- 
* Col. iv. 16. 



174 EriCTETCS. . 

blest class, and their moral character could hardly have been 
high, or they would not have consented under any circum- 
stance to sell into slavery their sickly child. Certainly it 
could hardly have been possible for Epictetus to enter into 
the world under less enviable or less promising auspices. 
But the whole system of life is full of divine and memorable 
compensations, and Epictetus experienced them. God 
kindles the light of genius where He ^nll, and He can in- 
spire the highest and most regal thoughts even into the 
rneanest slave : — 

" Such seeds are scatter' d night and day 
By the soft %vind from Heaven, 
And in the poorest human clay 
Have taken root and thriven. " 

What were the accidents — or rather, what was '' the un- 
seen Providence, by man nicknamed chance " — ^which as- 
signed Epictetus to the house of Epaphroditus we do not 
know. To a heart refined and noble there could hardly 
have been a more trying position. The slaves of a Roman 
fiunilia were crowded together in immense gangs ; they were 
liable to the most violent and capricious purnshments ; they 
might be sub_;ected to the most degraded and brutaHsing 
influences. Men sink too often to the level to which they 
are supposed to belong. Treated ^nth infamy for long 
years, they are apt to deem themselves vs'orthy of infamy — 
to lose that self-respect which is the invariable concomitant 
of religious feeling, and which, apart from rehgious feeling, 
is the sole preventive of personal degradation. Well may 
St. Paul say, " Art thou called, being a servant ? care not 
for it : but if thou ??iayest be ?nadefred, use it rather T* 

It is true that even in the heathen world there began at 
* I Cor. vii. 21. 



HIS LIFE, AXD I/O IV HE REGARDED IT. 175 

this time to be disseminated among the best and udsest 
thinkers a sense that slaves were made of the same clay as 
their masters, that they differed from freebom men only in 
the externals and accidents of their position, and that kind- 
ness to them and consideration for their difficulties was a 
common and elementar}^ duty of humanity. "I am glad to 
learn," says Seneca, in one of his interestmg letters to Lucil- 
ius, '^ that you live on terms of familiarity with your slaves ; 
it becomes your prudence and your erudition. Are they 
slaves? Nay, they are men. Slaves.^ Nay, companions. 
Slaves .? Nay, humble friends.- Slaves ,? Nay, fellow-slaves, 
if you but consider that fortune has power over you both." ' 
He proceeds, in a passage to which we have aheady alluded, 
to reprobate the haughty and inconsiderate fashion of keep- 
ing them standing for hours, mute and fasting, while their 
masters gorged themselves at the banquet. He deplores 
the cruelty which thinks it necessary to punish with terrible 
severity an accidental cough or sneeze. He quotes the pro- 
verb — a proverb which reveals a whole histor}' — " So many 
slaves, so many foes," and proves that they are not foes, 
but that men y;uide them so ; whereas, when kindly treated, 
when considerately addressed, they would be silent, even 
under torture, rather than speak to their master's disadvaiii- 
age. " Are they not sprung," he asks, "from the same ori- 
gin, do they not breathe the same air, do they not live and 
die just as we do.?" The blows, the broken hmbs, the 
clanking chains, the stinted food of the ergastula or sla^^e- 
prisons, excited all Seneca's compassion, and in all proba- 
bihty presented a picture of misery which the world has 
rarely seen surpassed, unless it v/ere in that nefarious trade 
which England to her shame once practised, and, to her 
eternal gloiy, resolutely swept away. 



176 EPICTETUS. 

But Seneca's inculcation of tenderness towards slaves was 
in reality one of the most original of his moral teachings ; 
and, from all that we know of Roman life, it is to be feared 
that the number of those who acted in accordance with it 
was small. Certainly Epaphroditus, the master of Epicte- 
tus, was not one of them. The historical facts which we 
know of this man are slight. He was one of the four who 
accompanied the tragic and despicable flight of Nero from 
Rome in the year 69, and when, after many waverings of 
cowardice, Nero at last, under imminent peril of being cap- 
tured and executed, put the dagger to his breast, it was 
Epaphroditus who helped the tyrant to drive it home into 
his heart, for which he was subsequently banished, and 
finally executed by the Emperor Domitian. 

Epictetus was accustomed to tell one or two anecdotes 
which, although given without comment, show the narrow- 
ness and vulgarity of the man. Among his slaves was a cer- 
tain worthless cobbler named Felicio ; as the cobbler was 
quite useless, Epaphroditus sold him, and by some chance 
he was bought by some one of Caesar's household, and made 
Caesar's cobbler. Instantly Epaphroditus began to pay him 
the profoundest respect, and to address him in the most en- 
dearing terms, so that if any one asked what Epaphroditus 
was doing, the answer, as likely as not, would be, " He is 
holding an important consultation with FeUcio." 

On one occasion, some one came to him bewailing, and 
weeping, and embracing his knees in a paroxysm of gnef, 
because of all his fortune little more than 50,000/, was left 1 
" What did Epaphroditus do ?" asks Epictetus ; " did he 
laugh at the man as we did ? Not at all ; on the contrary, 
he exclaimed, in a tone of commiseration and surprise, 



HIS LIFE, AA^D HO IF HE REGARDED IT. 177 

' Poor fellow ! how could you possibly keep silence and en- 
dure such a misfortune ?' " 

How brutally he could behave, and how little respect he 
inspired, we may see in the following anecdote. When 
Plautius Lateranus, the brave nobleman whose execution 
during Piso's conspiracy we have already related, had re- 
ceived on his neck an ineffectual blow of the tribune's 
sword, Epaphroditus, even at that dread moment, could not 
abstain from pressing him with questions. The only reply 
which he received from the dying man was the contemptu- 
ous remark, " Should I wish to say anything, I will say it 
(not to a slave like you, but) Xo your master T 

Under a man of this cahbre it is hardly likely that a lame 
Phrygian boy would experience much kindness. An anec- 
dote, indeed, has been handed down to us by several writers, 
which would show that he was treated with atrocious cruelty, 
Epaphroditus, it is said, once gratified his cruelty by t^vist- 
ing his slave's leg in some instrument of torture. " If you 
go on, you will break it," said Epictetus. The T\Tetch did 
go on, and did break it. "I told you that you would break 
it," said Epictetus quietly, not giving vent to his anguish by 
a single word or a single groan. Stories of heroism no less 
triumphant have been authenticated both in ancient and 
modern times ; but we may hope for the sake of human 
nature that this story is false, since another authority tells 
us that Epictetus became lame in consequence of a natural 
disease. Be that however as it may, some of the . early 
■ writers against Christianity — such, for instance, as the phy- 
sician Celsus — ^were fond of adducing this anecdote in proof 
of a magnanimity which not even Christianity could sur- 
pass: to which use of the anecdote Origen opposed the 
a'.vful silence of our Saviour upon the cross, and Gregory of 



17? EPICTETUS. 

Nazianzen pointed out that, though it was a noble thing to 
endure inevitable evils, it was yet more noble to undergo 
them voluntarily with an equal fortitude. But even if 
Epaphroditus were not guilty of breaking the leg of 
Epictetus, it is clear that the life of the poor youth was 
surrounded by circumstances of the most depressing and 
miserable character ; circumstances which would have forced 
an ordinary man to the low and animal level of existence 
which appears to have contented the great m.ajority of 
Roman slaves. Some of the passages in which he speaks 
about the consideration due to this unhappy class show a 
very tender feeling towards them. " It would be best," he 
says, " if, both while making your preparations and while 
feasting at your banquets, you distribute among the attend- 
ants some of the provisions. But if such a plan, at any 
particular time, be difficult to carry out, remember that you 
who are not fatigued are being waited upon by those who 
are fatigued ; you who are eating and drinking by those who 
are not eating and drinking ; you who are conversing by 
those who are mute ; you who are at your ease by people 
under painful constraint. And thus you will neither your- 
self be kindled into unseemly passion, nor will you in a fit 
of fury do harm to any one else." No doubt Epictetus is 
here describing conduct which he had often seen, and of 
which he had himself experienced the degradation. But 
he had early acquired a loftiness of soul and an insight into 
truth which enabled him to distinguish the substance from 
the shadow, to separate the realities of life from its acci- 
dents, and so to turn his very misfortunes into fresh means 
of attaining to moral nobility. In proof of this let us see 
some of his own opinions as to his state of life. 

At the very beginning of his Discourses he draws a dis- 



I 



HIS LIFE, AND HOW HE REGARDED IT. 179 

tinction between the things which the gods Jiave and the 
things which they have not put in our own power, and he 
held (being deficient here in that light which Christianity 
might have furnished to him) that the blessings denied to 
us are denied not because the gods would not, but because 
they could not grant them to us. And then he supposes 
that Jupiter addresses him : — ■ 

" O Epictetus, had it been possible, I would have made 
both your little body and your httle property free and unen- 
tangledj but now, do not be mistaken, it is not yours at all, 
but only clay finely kneaded. Since, however, I could not 
do this, I gave you a portion of ourselves, namely, this 
power of pursuing and avoiding, of desiring and of declin- 
ing, and generally the power of dealing with appearances : 
and if you cultivate this power, and regard it as that which 
constitutes your real possession, you will never be hindered 
or impeded, nor will you groan or find fault with, or flatter 
any one. Do these advantages then appear to you to be 
trifling ? Heaven forbid ! Be content therefore with these, 
and thank the gods." 

And again in one of his Fragments (viii. ix.) :— 

"Freedom and slavery are but names, respectively, of 
virtue and of vice : and both of them depend upon the will. 
But neither of them have anything to do with those things 
in which the will has no share. For no one is a slave whose 
win is free." 

" Fortune is an evil bond of the body, vice of the soul; for 
he is a slave whose body is free but whose soul is bound, and, 
on the contrary, he is free whose body is bound but whose 
soul is free." 

A^Tio does not catch in these passages the very tone of 
St. Paul Tvben he says, ^' He that is called in the Lord, 



i8o EPJCTETUS. 

being a servant, is the Lord's freeman r likewise also he that 
is called, being free, is Christ's servant ? " 

Nor is his independence less clearly express when he 
speaks of his deformity. Being but the deformity of a body 
which he despised, he spoke of himself as "an ethereal ex- 
istence staggering under the burden of a corpse." In his ad- 
mirable chapter on Contentment, he very forcibly lays down 
that topic of consolation which is derived from the sense 
that " the universe is not made for our individual satisfac- 
tion." ^'' Must my leg be lameV he supposes some queru- 
lous objector to inquire. "Slave!" he replies, "do you 
then because of one miserable little leg find fault with the 
universe ? Will you not concede that accident to the exist- 
ence of general laws ? Will you not dismiss the thought of 
it ? Will you not cheerfully assent to it for the sake of him 
who gave it. And will you be indignant and displeased at 
the ordinances of Zeus, which he ordained and appointed 
with the Destinies, who were present and wove the web of 
your being ? Know you not what an atom you are com- 
pared with the whole ? — that is, as regards your body, since 
as regards your reason you are no whit inferior to, or less 
than the gods. For the greatness of reason is not estimated 
by size or height, but by the doctrines which it embraces. 
Will you not then lay up yoiu: treasure in those matters 
wherein you are equal to the god» ? And, thanks to such 
principles, a poor and persecuted slave was able to raise his 
voice in sincere and eloquent thanksgiving to that God to 
whom he owed his " creation, preservation, and all the bless- 
ings of this life." 

Speaking of the multitude of our natural gifts, he says, 
"Are these the only gifts of Providence towards us ? Nay, 
what power of speech suffices adequately to praise, or to set 



HIS LIFE, AXD HOW HE REGARDED IT. i8l 

them forth ? for, had we but true intelligence, what duty 
would be more perpetually incumbent on us than both 
in public and in private to hymn the Divine,^ and 
bless His name and praise His benefits ? Ought we 
not, when we dig, and when we plough, and when we 
eat, to sing this hymn to God ? ' Great is God, be- 
cause He hath given us these implements whereby we 
may till the soil; great is God, because He hath given 
us hands, and the means of nourishment by food, 
and insensible growth, and breathing sleep ; ' these 
things in each particular we ought to hymn, and to chant 
the greatest and the divinest hymn, because He hath given 
us the power to appeciate these blessings, and continuously 
to use them. What then ? Since the most of you are 
blinded, ought there not to be some one to fulfil this province 
for you, and on behalf of all to sing his hymn to God? 
And what else can /do, who am a lame old man, except 
sing praises to God ? Now, had I been a nightingale, I 
should have sung the songs of a nightingale, or had I been 
a swan the songs of a swan j but, being a reasonable being, 
it is my duty to hymn God. This is my task, and I ac- 
complish it j nor, so far as may be granted to me, will I 
ever abandon this post, and you also do I exhort to this 
same song." 

There is an almost l^Tic beauty about these expressions 
of resignation and faith in God, and it is the utterance of 
such warm feelings towards Divine Providence that consti- 
tutes the chief originality of Epictetus. It is interesting to 
think that the oppressed heathen philosopher found the 
same consolation, and enjoyed the same contentment, as 
the persecuted Christian Apostle. "Whether ye eat or 
drink," says St. Paul, *■ or whatsoever ye do, do all to the 



iS2 _ EPICTETUS. 

glory of God." "Think of God," says Epictetus, "oftener 
Ihan you breathe. Let discourse of God be renewed daily 
more surely than your food." 

Here, again, are his views about his poverty {^Fragment 
xix.) : — 

" Examine yourself whether you wish to be rich or to be 
happy ; and if you wish to be rich, know that it neither is a 
blessing, nor is it altogether in your own power ; but if to 
be happy, know that it both is a blessing, and is in your 
own power ; since the former is but a temporary loa.ti of 
fortune, but the gift of happiness depends upon the will." 

"Just as when you see a viper, or an asp, or a scorpion, 
in a casket of ivory or gold, you do not love or congratulate 
thera on the splendour of their material, but because their 
nature is pernicious you turn from and loathe them, so like- 
w^ise when you see vice enshrined in wealth and the pomp 
of circumstance do not be astounded at the glory of its sur- 
roundings, but despise the meanness of its character." 

" Wealth is not among the number of good things ; extrav- 
agance is among the number of evils, sober-mindedness of 
good things. Now sober-mindedness invites us to frugality 
and the acquisition of real advantages; but wealth to extra- 
vagance, a id it drags us away from sober-mindedness. It 
is a hard matter, therefcwe, being rich to be sober-minded, 
or being sober-minded to be rich." 

The last sentence will forcibly remind the reader of our 
Lord's own words, " How hardly shall they that have riches 
( or as the parallel passage less startlingly expresses it, 
"Children, how hard is it for them that trust m riches to") 
enter into the kingdom of God." 

But this is a favourite subject with the ancient philoso- 
pher, and Epictetus continues : — 



i 



HIS LIFE, AXD HOW HE REGARDED IT. 183 

'' Had you been born in Persia, you would not have been 
eager to live in Greece, but to stay where you were, and be 
happy ; and, being born in poverty, v/hy are you eagar to be 
rich, and not rather to abide in poverty, and so be happy?" 

" As it is better to be in good health, being hard-pressed 
on a httle truckle-bed, than to roll, and to be ill in some 
broad couch ; so too it is better in a small competence to 
enjoy the calm of moderate desires, than in the midst of 
superfluities to be discontented." 

This, too, is a thought which many have expressed. 
" Gentle sleep,'' says Horace, " despises not the humble 
cottages of rustics, nor the shaded banks, nor valleys whose 
foliage waves with the western wind ;" and every reader will 
recall the magnificent words of our own great Siiakespeare — • 

' ' Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, 
And hush'd wnth buzziag night-flies to thy slumber, 
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 
Under the canopies of costly state. 
And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody ?" 

To the subject of freedom, and to the power which man 
possesses to make himself entirely independent of all sur- 
rounding circumstances, Epictetus incessantly recurs. With 
the possibihty of banishment to an ergastulum perpetually 
before his eyes, he defines a prison as being any situation 
in vvhlch a man is placed against his will; to Socrates for 
instance the prison was no prison, for he was there wil- 
lingly, and no man need be in prison, against his will if he 
has learnt, as one of his primary duties, a cheerful acquies- 
cence in the inevitable. By the expression of such senti- 



1 84 EPICTETUS. 

ments Epictetus had anticipated by fifteen hundred years 
the immortal truth so sweetly expressed by Lovelace : 

^'^ Stone walls do not aprisojt iftake, 
Nor iron bars a cage ; 
Minds innocent and quiet take 
That for a hermitage." 

Situated as he was, we can hardly wonder that thoughts 
like these occupied a large share of the mind of Epictetus, 
or that he had taught himself to lay hold of them with the 
firmest possible grasp. When asked, " Who among men 
is rich? " he replied, " He who suffices for himself;" an ex- 
pression which contains the germ of the truth so forcibly 
expressed in the Book of Proverbs, "The backshder in 
heart sha'l be filled with his own ways, and a good man 
shall be satisfied from himself^ Similarly, when asked, 
"Who is free ? " he replies, " The man who masters his own 
self," with much the same tone of expressions as that of 
Solomon, " He that is slow to anger is better than the 
mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a 
city." Socrates was one of the great models whom Epic- 
tetus constantly seats before him, and this is one of the an- 
ecdotes which he relates about him with admiration. When 
ArchelaUs sent a message to express the intention of 
making him rich, Socrates bade the messenger inform him 
that at Athens four quarts of meal might be bought for 
three halfpence, and the fountains flow with water. "If 
then my existing possessions are insufficient for me, at any 
rate I am sufficient for them, and so they too are sufficient 
for me. Do you not see that Polus acted the part of 
CEdipus in his royal state with no less beauty of voice than 
that of CEdipus in Colonos, a wanderer and beggar ? Shall 



HIS LIFE, AND HO IV HE REGARDED IT. 185 

then a noble man appear inferior to Polus, so as not to act 
well every character imposed upon him by Divine Provi- 
dence ; and shall he not imitate Ulysses, who even in rags 
was no less conspicuous than in the curled nap of his purple 
cloak ? " 

Generally speaking, the view which Epictetus took of life 
is always simple, and always consistent ; it is a view which 
gave him consolation among Hfe's troubles, and strength to 
display some of its noblest virtues, and it may be summed 
up in the following passages of his famous Manual: — ■ 

"Remember," he says, "that you are an actor of just 
such a part as is assigned you by the Poet of the play ; of a 
short part, if the part be short ; of a long part, if it be long. 
Should He wish you to act the part of a beggar, take care 
to act it naturally and nobly ; and the same if it be the part 
of a lame man, or a ruler, or a private man ; for this is in 
your power, to act well the part assigned to you ; but to 
choose that part is the function of another," 

" Let not these considerations afflict you : ' I shall live de- 
spised, and the merest nobody ;' for if dishonour be an evil, 
you cannot be involved in evil any more than you can be 
involved in baseness through any one else's means. Is it 
then at all your business to be a leading man, or to 
be entertained at a banquet? By no means. How 
then can it be a dishonor not to be so ? And how will you 
be a mere nobody, since it is your duty to be somebody 
only in those circumstances which are in your own power, 
in which you may be a person of the greatest importance ? " 

" Honour, precedence, confidence," he argues in another 
passage, " whether they be good things or evil things, are 
at any rate things for which their own definite price must be 
paid. Lettuces are sold for a penny, and if you want your 



1 86 EPICTETUS. 

lettuce you must pay your penny ; and similarly, if you want 
to be asked out to a person's house, you must pay the price 
which he demands for asking people, whether the coin he 
requires be praise or attention ; but if you do not give these, 
do not expect the other. Have you then gained nothing 
in lieu of your supper ? Indeed you have; you have escaped 
praising a person whom you did not want to praise, and you 
have escaped the necessity of tolerating the upstart imper- 
tinence of his menials." 

Some parts of this last thought have been so beautifully 
expressed by the American poet Lowell that I will conclude 
this chapter in his words : 

" Earth hath her price for what earth gives us ; 

The beggar is tax'd for a comer to die in j 
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrieves us ; 

We bargain for the graves we lie in : 
At the devil's mart are all things sold, 
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold, 
For a cap and bells our lives we pay. 

Bubbles we earn with our whole soul's tasking, 
' Tis only God that is given away, 

' Tis only heaven may be had for the asking. " 



.4- 



CHAPTER II. 

LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPiCTETUS {continued). 

Whether any of these great thoughts would have suggested 
themselves spo?iianeously to Epictetus — ^whether there was 
an inborn wisdom and nobleness in the mind of this slave 
which would have enabled him to elaborate such views 
from his own consciousness, we cannot tell ; they do not, 
however, express his sentiments only, but belong in fact to 
the moral teaching of the great Stoic school, in the doc- 
trines of which he had received instruction. 

It may sound strange to the reader that one situated as 
Epictetus was should yet have had a regular tutor to train 
him in Stoic doctrines. That such should have been the 
case appears at first sight inconsistent with the cruelty with 
which he was treated, but it is a fact which is capable of 
easy explanation. In times of universal luxiury and display 
— in times when a sort of surface-refinement is found 
among all the wealthy — some sort of respect is always paid 
to intellectual eminence, and intellectual amusements are 
cultivated as well as those of a coarser character. Hence a 
rich Roman liked to have people of literary culture among 
his slaves ; he liked to have people at hand who would get 
him any information which he might desire about books, 
who could act as his amanuenses, who could even correct 



i88 EPICTETUS. 

and supply information for his original compositions. Such 
learned slaves formed part of ever}- large estabUshment, 
and among them were usually to be found some who bore, 
if they did not particularly merit, the title of " philosophers." 
These men — many of whom are described as having been 
mere impostors, ostentatious pedants, or ignorant hypocrites 
— acted somewhat like domestic chaplains in the houses of 
their patrons. They gratified an amateur taste for wisdom, 
and helped to while away in comparative innocence the 
hours which their masters might otherwise have spent in 
lassitude or sleep. It was no more to the credit of Epaph- 
roditus that he wished to have a philosophic slave, than it is 
to the credit of an ilHterate millionaire in modern times that 
he likes to have works of high art in his drawing-room, and 
books of reference in his well-furnished library. 

Accordingly, since Epictetus must have been singularly 
useless for all physical purposes, and since his thoughtful- 
fulness and intelligence could not fail to command atten- 
tion, his master determined to make him useful in the only 
way possible, and sent him to Caius Musonius Rufus to be 
trained in the doctrines of the Stoic pliilosophy. 

Musonius was the son of a Roman knight. His learning 
and eloquence, no less than his keen appreciation of Stoic 
truths, had so deeply kindled the suspicions of Nero, that he 
banished him to the rocky little island of Gyaros, on the 
charge of his having been concerned in Piso's conspiracy. 
He returned to Rome after the suicide of Nero, and lived 
in great distinction and respect, so that he was allowed to 
remain in the city when the Emperor Vespasian banished 
all the other philosophers of any eminence. 

The works of Musonius have not come down to us, but a 
few notices of him, which are scattered in the Discourses of 



HIS LIFE AND VIEWS. 189 

his greater pupil, show us what kind of man he was. The 
following anecdotes will show that he was a philosopher of 
the strictest school. 

Speaking of the value of logic as a means of training the 
reason, Epictetus anticipates the objection that, after all, a 
mere error in reasoning is no very serious fault. He points 
out that it is a fault, and that is sufficient. " I too," he 
says, " once made this ve^ remark to Rufus when he re- 
buked me for not discovering the suppressed premiss in 
some syllogism. ' What !' said I, ' have I then set the 
Capitol on fire, that you» rebuke me thus ?' ' Slave !' he 
answered, ' what has the Capitol to do with it ? Is there 
no other fault then short of setting the Capitol on fire? 
Yes ! to use one's own mere fancies rashly, at random, 
anyhow ; not to follow an argument, or a demonstration, or 
a sophism ; not, in short, to see what makes for oneself or 
not, in questioning and answering — is none of these things 
a fault?'" 

Sometimes he used to test the Stoical endurance of his 
pupil by pointing out the indignities and tortures which his 
master might at any moment inflict upon him \ and when 
Epictetus answered that, after all, such treatment was what 
man had borne, and therefore could bear, he would reply 
approvingly that every man's destiny was in his own hands ; 
that he need lack nothing from any one else ; that, since 
he could derive from himself magnanimity and nobility of 
soul, he might despise the notion of receiving lands or 
money or office. " But," he continued, "when any one is 
cowardly or mean, one ought obviously in writing letters 
about such a person to speak of him as a corpse, and to 
say, ' Favour us with the corpse and blood of So-and-so.' 
For, in fact, such a man is a mere corpse, and nothing 



I90 EPICTETUS. 

more ; for if he were anything more, he would have jDer- 
ceived that no man ever suffers any real misfortunes by 
another's means." I do not know whether Mr. Ruskin is 
a student of Epictetus, but he, among others, has forcibly 
expressed the same truth. " My friends, do you remem.ber 
that old Scythian custom, when the head of a house died ? 
Hov/ he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his 
chariot, and carried about to his*f:i ends' houses ; and each 
of them placed him at his table's head, and all feasted in 
his presence? Suppose it were offered to you, in plain 
words, as it is offered to you in ,dire facts, that you should 
gain this Scythian honour gradually, while you yet thought 
yourself alive. . . . Would a'Ou take the offer verbally made 
by the death-angel .? Would the meanest among us take it, 
think you ? Yet practically and verily v^' e grasp at it, every 
one of us, in a measure ; many of us grasp at it in the ful- 
ness of horror." 

The way in which Musonius treated would-be pupils 
much resembled the plan adopted by Socrates. "It is not 
easy," says Epictetus, " to train effeminate youths, any 
more than it is easy to take up whey with a hook. But 
those of fine nature, even if you discourage them, desire in- 
struction all the more. For which reason Rufus often dis- 
couraged pupils, using this as a criterion of fine and of 
common natures; for he used to say, that just as a stone, 
even if you fling it into the air, will fall down to the earth 
by its own gravitating force, so also a noble nature, in pro- 
portion as it is repulsed, in that proportion tends more in 
its own natural direction." As Emerson says, — 
"Yet on the nimble air benign 

Speed nimbler messages, 
That waft the breath of grace divine 
To hearts in sloth and ease. 



HIS LIFE AXD VIEWS. 191 

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 

So near is God to man, 
\Mien Duty whispers low, ' Thou must, ' 

The youth replies, ' I can.' " 

One more trait of the character of Musonius will show 
how deeply Epictetus respected him, and how much good 
he derived from him. In his Discourse on Ostentation, 
Epictetus says that Rufus was in the habit of rem.arking to 
his pupils, " If you have leisure to praise me, I can have 
done you no good." " He used indeed so to address us 
that each one of us, sitting there, thought that some one 
had been privately telling tales against hi7?i in particular, 
so completely did Rufus seize hold of his characteristics, so 
\avidly did he portray our individual faults." 

Such was the man under whose teaching Epictetus grew 
to maturity, and it was evidently a teaching which was wise 
and noble, even if it were somewhat chiUing and austere. It 
formed an epoch in the slave's Hfe ; it remoulded his entire 
character ; it was to him the source of blessings so inesti- 
mable in their value that it is doubtful whether they were 
counter-balanced by all the miseries of poverty, slavery, and 
contempt. He would probably have admitted that it was 
better for him to have been sold into cruel slavery, than it 
would have been to grow up in freedom, obscurity, and ig- 
norance in his native Hierapolis. So that Epictetus might 
have found, and did find, in his own person, an additional 
argument in favour of Divine Pro\ddence : an additional 
proof that God is kind and merciful to all men j an addi- 
tional intensity of conviction that, if our lots on earth are 
not equal, they are at least dominated by a principle of jus- 
tice and of wisdom, and each man, on the whole, may gain 
that which is best for him, and that which most honestlv 



192 EPICTETUS. 

and most heartily he desires. Epictetus reminds us again 
and again that we may have many, if not all, such advant- 
ages as the world has to offer, if we are willing to pay the 
price by which they are obtai?ied. But if that price be a 
mean or a wicked one, and if we should scorn ourselves 
were we ever tempted to pay it, then we must not even 
cast one longing look of regret towards things which can 
only be got by that which we deliberately refuse to give. 
Every good and just man may gain, if not happiness, then, 
something higher than happiness. Let no one regard this 
as a mere phrase, for it is capable of a most distinct and 
definite meaning. There are certain things which all men 
desire, and which all men would gladly, if they could law- 
fully and innocently obtain. These things are health, 
wealth, ease, comfort, influence, honour, freedom from op- 
position and from pain ; and yet, if you were to place all 
theze blessings on the one side, and on the other side to 
place poverty, and disease, and anguish, and trouble, and 
contempt, — yet, if on this side also you were to place truth 
and justice, and a sense that, however densely the clouds 
may gather about our life, the light of God will be visible 
beyond them, all the noblest men who ever lived would 
choose, as without hesitation they always have chosen, the 
latter destiny. It is not that they like failure, but they pre- 
fer failure to falsity ; it is not that they love persecution, but 
they prefer persecution to meanness ; it is not that they relish 
opposition, but they welcome opposition rather than guilty 
acquiescence ; it is not that they do not shrink from agony, 
but they would not escape agony by crime. The selfish- 
ness of Dives in his purple is to them less enviable than the 
innocence of Lazarus in rags ; they would be chained with 
John in prison rather than loll with Herod at the feast ; they 



HIS LIFE AND VIEWS. 193 

would fight with beasts with Paul in the arena rather than 
be steeped in the foul luxury of Nero on the throne. It is 
not happiness, but it is something higher than happiness ; it 
is stillness, it is assurance, it is satisfaction, it is peace ; the 
world can neither understand it, nor give it, nor take it 
away, — it is something indescribable — it is the gift of God. 

" The fallacy " of being surprised at wickedness in pros- 
perity, and righteousness in misery, " can only lie," says 
Mr. Froude, in words which would have delighted Epicte- 
tus, and which would express the inmost spirit of his phil- 
osophy, " in the supposed right to happiness. . . . Happi- 
ness is not what we are to look for. Our place is to be 
true to the best we know, to seek that, and do that ; and if 
by ' virtue is its own reward ' be meant that the good man 
cares only to continue good, desiring nothing more, then it 
is a true and a noble saying. . . . Let us do right, and 
then whether happiness come, or unhappiness, it is no very 
mighty matter. If it come, life will be sweet ; if it do not 
come, life will be bitter — bitter, not sweet, and yet to be 
borne. . . . The well-being of our souls depends only on 
what we are ; and nobleness of character is nothing else 
\iMt steady love of good^a7id steady scorn of evil. . . . Only to 
those who have the heart to say, 'We can do without selfish 
enjoyment: it is not what we ask or desire,' is there no 
secret. Man will have what he desires, and will find what 
is really best for him, exactly as he honestly seeks for it. 
Happiness mayfly away, pleasitre pall or cease to be obtain- 
able, wealth decay, friends fail or prove unkind; but the 
power to serve God never fails, and the love of Him is never 
rejected. 



CHAPTER III. 

LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS {continued.) 

Of the life of Epictetus, as distinct from his opinions, there 
is unfortunately little more to be told. The life of 

" That halting slave, who in Nicopolis 
Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son 
Cleared Rome of what most shamed him," 

is not an eventful life, and the conditions which surrounded 
it are very circumscribed. Great men, it has been ob- 
served, have often the shortest biographies ; their real life 
is in their books. 

At some period of his life, but how or when we do not 
know, Epictetus was mxanumitted by his master, and was 
hencefonvard regarded by the world as free. Probably the 
change made little or no difference in his life. If it saved 
him from a certain amount of brutality, if it gave him more 
uninterrupted leisure, it probably did not in the slightest 
degree modify the hardships of his existence, and may have 
caused him some httle anxiety as to the means of procuring 
the necessaries of life. He, of all men, would have at- 
tached the least importance to the external conditions under 
which he lived ; he always regarded them as falling under 



HIS LIFE AND VIEWS. 195 

the category of things which lay beyond the sphere of his 
ow.i influence, and therefore as things with which he had 
nothing to do. Even in his most oppressed days, he con- 
sidered himself, by the grace of heaven, to be more free — 
free in a far truer and higher sense — than thousands of 
those who owed allegiance to no master's will. Whether 
he had saved any small sum of money, or whether his needs 
were supplied by the many who loved and honoured him, 
we do not know. He was a man who was content with the 
barest necessaries of life, and we may be sure that he would 
have refused to be indebted to any one for more than these. 
It is probable that he never married. This may have 
been due to that shade of indifference to the female char- 
acter of which we detect traces here and there in his writ- 
ings. In one passage he complains that women seemed to 
think of nothing but admiration and getting married ; and, 
in another, he observes, almost with a sneer, that the Roman 
ladies were fond of Plato's Republic because he allowed 
some very liberal marriage regulations. We can only infer 
from these passages that he had been very unfortunate in 
the specimens of women with whom he had been thrown. 
The Roman ladies of his tinie were certainly not models of 
character ; he was not likely to fall in with very exalted 
females among the slaves of Epaphroditus or the ladies of 
his family, and he had probably never known the love of a 
sister or a mother's care. He did not, however, go the 
length of condemning marriage altogether; on the con- 
trary, he blames the philosophers who did so. But it is 
equally obvious that he approves of celibacy as a "counsel 
of perfection," and indeed his views on the subject have so 
close and remarkable a resemblance to those of St. Paul, 
6 



196 EPICTETUS. 

that ou.r readers will be interested in seeing them side by 
side. 

In I Cor. vii. St. Paul, after speaking of the nobleness of 
virginity, proceeds, nevertheless, to sanction matrimony as 
in itself a hallowed and honourable estate. It was not 
given to all, he says, to abide even as he was, and therefore 
marriage should be adopted as a sacred and indissoluble 
bond. Still, \\dthout being sure that he has any divine 
sanction for what he is about to say, he considers ceHbacy 
good '"for the present distress," and warns those that marry 
that they 'shall have trouble in the flesh." For marriage 
involves a direct multiplication of the cares of the flesh: 
" He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to 
the Lord, how he may please the Lord : but he that is mar- 
ried careth for the things that are of the world, how he may 
please his wife. . , . And this I speak for your own profit, 
not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is 
comely^ and that ye may attend upon the Lord without dis- 
traction.'' 

It is clear, then, that St. Paul regarded ^drginity as a 
'•' counsel of perfection," and Epictetus uses respecting it al- 
most identically the same language. Marriage was per- 
fectly permissible in his view, but it was much better for a 
C}Tiic {i.e. for all who carried out most fully their philoso- 
phical obligations) to remain single : " Since the condition 
of things is such as it now is, as though we were on the eve 
of battle, ought not the Cynio to be entirely without distrac- 
tion " [the Greek word being the very same as that used by 
St. Paul] ""for the service of God 2 ought he not to be able 
to move about among mankind free from the entanglement 
of private relationships or domestic duties, which if he 
negiect he will no longer preserve the character of a wise 



• ms LIFE AND VIEWS. l^-j 

and good man, and which if he observe he will lose the 
function of a messenger, and sentinel, and herald of the 
gods ?" Epictetus proceeds to point out that if he is mar- 
ried he can no longer look after the spiritual interests of all 
with whom he is thrown in contact, and no longer maintain 
the rigid independence of all luxuries which marked the 
genuine philosopher. He i7iust^ for instance, have a bath 
for his child, provisions for his wife's ailments, and clothes 
for his little ones, and money to buy them satchels and 
pens, and cribs and cups ; and hence a general increase of 
furniture, and all sorts of undignified distractions, which 
Epictetus enumerates with an almost amusing manifestation 
of disgust. It is true (he admits) that Crates, a celebrated 
cynic, was m.arried, but it was to a lady as self-den}dng as 
himself, and to one who had given up wealth and friends to 
share hardship and poverty with him. And, if Epictetu-s 
does not venture to say in so many words that Crates in this 
matter m.ade a mistake, he takes pains to point out that the 
circumstances were far too exceptional to be accepte i as a 
precedent for the imitation of others. 

" But," inquires the interlocutor, "how then is the world 
to get on ?" The question seems quite to disturb the 
bachelor equanimity of Epictetus; it makes him use lan- 
gua[;e of the strongest and most energetic contempt : and it 
is only when he trenches on this subject that he ever seems 
to lose the nobility and grace, the ''sweetness and light," 
- vv'hich are the general characteristic of his utterances. In 
spite of his complete self-mastery he was evidently a man of 
strong feelings, and with a natural tendency to express them 
strongly. "Heaven bless us," he exclaims in leply, "are 
they greater benefactors of mankind who bring into the 



19^ BPIGTBTUS. 

woild two or three evilly-squalling brats,* or those who, to | 
the best of their power, keep a beneficent eye on the lives, j 
and habits, and tendencies of all mankind ? Were the The- 
bans who had large famiHes more useful to their country 
than the childless Epaminondas ; or was Homer less useful '\ 
to mankind than Priam with his fifty good-for-nothing sons ? 
.... Why, sir, the true cynic is a father to all men ; all 
men are his sons and all women his daughters ; he has a 
bond of union, a lien of affection with them all." {Dissert. 
iii. 2 2.) 

The whole character of Epicletus is sufficient to prove 
that he would only do what he considered most desirable 
and most exalted ; and passages like these, the extrem.e as- 
perity of which I have necessarily softened down, are, I 
think, decisive in favour of the tradition which pronounces 
him to have been unmarried. 

We are told that he lived in a cottage of the simplest 
and even meanest description : it neither needed nor pos- 
sessed a fastening of any kind, for within it there was no 
furniture except a lamp and the poor straw pallet on which 
he slept. About his lamp there was current in antiquity a 
famous story, to which he himself alludes. As a piece of 
unwonted luxury he had purchased a little iron lamp, which 
burned in front of the images of his household deities. It 
was the only possession which he had, and a thief stole it. 
" He will be finely disappointed when he comes again," 
quietly observed Epictetus. "for he will only find an earth- 

* nanopfivyxoc itaidia. Another reading is KOHopvyx^j which 
M, Martha renders, " Alarinots a vilain petit museatt ./" It is evident 
that Epictetus did not hke children, which makes his subsequently men- 
tioned compassion to the poor neglected child still more creditable to 
him. 



HIS LIFE AND VIEWS. 199 

enware lamp next time." At his death the little earthen- 
ware lamp was bought by some genuine hero-worshipper for 
3,000 drachmas. " The purchaser hoped," says the satiri- 
cal Lucian, " that if he read philosophy at night by that 
lamp, he would at once acquire in dreams the wisdom of 
the admirable old man who once possessed it." 

But, in spite of his deep poverty, it must not be sup- 
posed that there was anything eccentric or ostentatious in 
the life of Epictetus. On the contrary, his writings abound 
in directions as to the proper bearing of a philosopher in 
life. He warns his students that they may have ridicule to 
endure. Not only did the little boys in the streets, the 
gamins of Rome, appear to consider a philosopher "fair 
game," and think it fine fun to mimic his gestures and pull 
his beard, but he had to undergo the sneers of much more 
dignified people. " If," says Epictetus, " you want to know 
how the Romans regard philosophers, listen. Maelius, who 
had the highest philosophic reputatiom among them, once 
when I was present, happened to get into a great rage with 
his people, and as though he had received an intolerable in- 
jury, exclaimed, ' I cannot endure it ; you are kilHng me ; 
why, you'll make me like him f pointing to me," evidently 
as if Epictetus were the merest insect in existence. And, 
again he says in the Manual . " If you wish to be a phil- 
osopher, prepare yourself to be thoroughly laughed at since 
many will certainly sneer an(i jeer at you, and will say, ' He 
has come back to us as a philosopher all of a sudden,' and 
' Where in the world did he get this superciliousness ?' Now 
do not you be supercilious, but cling to the things which 
appear best to you in such a manner as though you were 
conscious of having been appointed by God to this posi- 
tion," Again in the httle discourse On the Desire of Ad- 



2o6 EPICTETUS. 

miration, he warns the philosopher ^'■?iot towalk as if he had 
swallowed a poker'' or to care for the applause of those 
multitudes whom he holds to be immersed in error. For 
all display, aid pretence, and hypocrisy, and Pharisaism, 
and boasting, and mere fruitless book-learning he seems to 
have felt a genuine and profound contempt. Recommen- 
dations to simplicity of conduct, courtesy of manner, and 
moderation of language were among his practical precepts. 
It is refreshing, too, to know that with the strongest and 
manliest good sense, he entirely repudiated that dog-like 
brutality of behaviour, and repulsive eccentricity of self- 
neglect, which characterised not a few of the Cynic leaders. 
He expressly argues that the Cynic should be a man of 
ready tact, and attractive presence ; and there is something 
of almost indignant energy in his words when he urges upon 
a pupil the plain duty of scrupulous cleanliness. In this 
respect our friends the Hermits would not quite have satis- 
fied him, although he might possibly have pardoned them 
on the plea that they abode in desert soHtudes, since he 
bids those who neglect the due care of their bodies to live 
" either in the wilderness or alone." 

Late in life Epictetus mcreased his establishment by tak- 
ing in an old woman as a servant. The cause of his doing 
so shows an almost Christian tenderness of character. Ac- 
cording to the hideous custom of infanticide which pre- 
vailed in the pagan world, a man with whom Epictetus was 
acquainted exposed his infant son to perish. Epictetus in 
pity took the child home to save its life, and the services of 
a female were necessary to supply its wants. Such kindaess 
and self-denial were all the more admirable because pity, 
like all other deep emotions, was regarded by the Stoics in 
the light rather of a vice than of a virtue,. In this respect, 



HIS LIFE AND VIEWS. 201 

however, both Seneca and Epictetus, and to a still greater 
extent Marcus Aurelius, were gloriously false to the rigidity 
of the school to which they professed to belong. We see 
with delight that one of the Discourses of Epictetus was O71 
the Tenderness aiid Forbearance due to Si?i7iers ; and he 
abounds in exhortations to forbearance in judging others. 
In one of his Fragme?its he tells the following anecdote: — 
A person who had seen a poor ship-wrecked and almost dy- 
ing pirate took pity on him, carried him home, gave him 
clothes, and furnished him with all the necessaries of life. 
Somebody reproached him for doing good to the wicked — • 
" I have honoured," he repHed, " not the man, but human- 
ity in his person." 

But one fact more is known in the life of Epictetus, 
Domitian, the younger son of Vespasian, succeeded his far 
nobler brother the Emperor Titus ; and in the course of his 
reign a decree was passed which banished all the philoso- 
phers from Italy. Epictetus was not exempted from this 
unjust and absurd decree. That "he bore it with equani- 
mity may be inferred from the approval with which he tells 
an anecdote about Agrippinus, who while his cause was 
being tried in the Senate went on with all his usual avoca- 
tions, and on being informed on his return from bathing 
that he had been condemned, quietly asked, " To death or 
banishment ?" " To banishment," said the messenger. " Is 
my property confiscated?" "No," "Very well, then let 
us go as far as Aricia " (about sixteen miles from Rome), 
" and dine there." 

There was a certain class of philosophers whose external 
mark and whose sole claim to distinction rested in the 
length of their beards ; and when the decree of Domitian 
was passed these gentleman contented themselves with 



202 EPICTETUS. 

shaving. Epictetus alludes to this in his second Discourse^ 
" Gome, Epictetus, shave off your beard," he imagines some 
one to say to him. " If I am a philosopher I will not," he 
replies. " Then I will take off your head." " By all 
means, if that will do you any good." 

He went to Nicopolis, a town of Epirus, which had been 
built by Augustus in commemoration of his victory at Act- 
ium. Whether he ever revisited Rome is uncertain, but it 
is probable that he did so, for we know that he enjoyed the 
friendship of several eminent philosophers and statesmen, 
and was esteemed and honoured by the Emperor Hadrian 
himself He is said to have lived to a good old age, sur- 
rounded by affectionate and eager disciples, and to have 
died with the same noble simplicity which had marked his 
life. The date of his death is as little known as that of his 
birth. It only remams to give a sketch of those thoughts 
which, poor though he was, and despised, and a slave, yet 
made him " dear to the immortals." 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE "manual" and "FRAGMENTS" OF EPICTETUS. 

It is nearly certain that Epictetus never committed any of 
his doctrines to writing. Like his great exemplar, Socrates, 
he contented himself with oral instruction, and the bulk of 
what has come down to us in his name consists in the Dis- 
courses reproduced for us by his pupil Arrian. It was the 
ambition of Arrian "to be to Epictetus what Xenophon 
had been' to Socrates," that is, to hand down to posterity a 
noble and faithful picture of the manner in which his master 
had lived and taught. With this view, he wrote four books 
on Epictetus , — a life, which is now unhappily lost ; a book 
of conversation or " table talk," which is also lost ; and two 
books which have come down to us, viz. the Discourses and 
the Manual. It is from these two invaluable books, and 
from a good many isolated fragments, that we are enabled 
to judge what was the practical morality of Stoicism, as ex- 
pounded by the holy and upright slave. 

The Manual is a kind of abstract of Epictetus's ethical 
principles, which,_ with many additional illustrations and 
with more expansion, are also explained in the Discourses. 
Both books were so popular that by their means Arrian 
first came into conspicuous notice, and ultimately attained 
the highest eminence and rank. The Manual was to anti- 



204 MPICTETUS. 

quity what the Imitatio of Thomas a Kempis was to later 
times, and what Woodhead's Whole Duty of Man or Wil- 
berforce's Practical View of Christianity have been to large 
sections of modern Englishmen. It was a clear, succinct, 
and practical statement of common daily duties, and the 
principles upon which they rest. Expressed in a manner 
entirely simple and unornate, its popularity was wholly due 
to the moral elevation of the thoughts which it expressed. 
Epictetus did not aim at style ; his one aim was to excite 
his hearers to virtue, and Arrian tells us that in this en- 
deavour he created a deep impression by his manner and 
voice. It is interesting to know that the Manual was 
widely accepted among Christians no less than among 
Pagans, and that, so late as the fifth century, paraphrases 
were written of it for Christian use. No systematic treatise 
of morals so simply beautiful was ever composed, and to 
this day the best Christian may study it, not with interest 
only, but with real advantage. It is like the voice of the 
Sybil, which, uttering things simple, and unperfumed, 
and unadorned, by God's grace leacheth through innumer- 
able years. We proceed to give a short sketch of its con- 
tents. 

Epictetus began by laying down the broad comprehensive 
statement that there are some things which are in our 
power, and depend upon ourselves ; other things which are 
beyond our power, and wholly independent of us. The 
things which are in our power are our opinions, our aims, 
our desires, our aversions — in a word, our actions. The 
things beyond our power are bodily accidents, possessions, 
fame, rank, and whatever lies beyond the- sphere, of our 
actions. To the former of these classes of things our whole 
attention must be confined. In that region we may be 



HIS ''MANUAL'' AND ''FRAGMENTS:' 205 

noble, unperturbed, and free ; in the other we shall be de- 
pendent, frustrated, querulous, miserable. Beth classes 
cannot be successfully attended to; they are antagonistic, 
antipathetic; we cannot serve God and Mammon. 

Now, if we take a right view of all these things which in 
no way depend on ourselves v/e shall regard them as mere 
semblances — as shadows which ^re to be distinguished from 
the true substance. We shall not look upon them as fit 
subjects for aversion or desire. Sin and cruelty, and false- 
hood we may hate, because we can avoid them if v/e will; 
but we must look upon sickness, and poverty, and death as 
things which are not fit subjects for our avoidance, because 
they lie wholly beyond our control. 

This, then, — endurance of the inevitable, avoidance of 
the evil — is the keynote of the Epictetean philosophy. It 
has been summed up in the three words, iAvex^v nal ajtexov, 
^^ sustine et absiine^^ " Bear and forbear," — bear whatever 
God assigns to you, abstain from that which He forbids. 

The earlier part of the Manual is devoted to practical 
advice which may enable men to endure nobly. For in- 
stance, " If there be anything," says Epictefus, " which you 
highly value or tenderly love, estimate at th^ 'ame time its 
true nature. Is it some possession ? remember that it may 
be destroyed. Is it wife or child ? remember that they may 
die." '' Death," says an epitaph in Chester Cathedral — 

"Death, the great monitor, comes oft to prove, 
*Tis dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love." 

*•' Desire nothing' too much. If you are going to the 
public baths and are annoyed or hindered by the rudeness, 
the pushing, the abuse, the thievish propensities of others, 
do not lose your temper : remind yourself that it is more 



2o6 EPICTETUS. 

important that you should keep your will in harmony with 
nature than that you should bathe. And so with all trou- 
bles ; men suffer far less from the things themselves than 
from the opinions they have of them." 

" If you cannot frame your circumstances in accordance 
with your wishes, frame your will into harmony with your 
circumstances.* When you lose the best gifts of life, con- 
sider them as not lost but only resigned to Him who gave 
them. You have a remedy in your own heart against all 
trials — continence as a bulwark against passion, patience 
against opposition, fortitude against pain. Begin with 
trifles : if you are robbed, remind yourself that your peace 
of mind is of more value and importance than the thing 
which has been stolen from you. Follow the guidance of 
nature ; that is the great thing ; regret nothing, desire 
nothing, which can disturb that end. Behave as at a ban- 
quet — take with gratitude and in moderation what is set be- 
fore you, and seek for nothing more ; a higher and diviner 
step will be to be ready and able to forego even that which 
is given you, or which you might easily obtain. Sympathise 
with others, at "least externally, when they are in sorrow and 
misfortune ; but remember in your own heart that to the 
brave and wise and true there is really no such thing as 
misfortune ; it is but an ugly semblance ; the croak of the 
raven can portend no harm to such a man, he is elevated 
above its power. 

'' We do not choose our own parts in life^ and have 
nothing to do with those parts ; our simple duty is confined 
to playing them well The slave may be as free as the con- 

* ' ' When what thou Wiliest b'efalls not, thoU then must Will what 
befalkth," 



HIS ''MANUAL'' AND ''FRAGMENTS:' 207 

sul ; and freedom is the chief of blessings ; it dwarfs all 
others ; beside it all others are insignificant, with it all 
others become needless, without it no others are possible. 
No one can insult you if you will not regard his words or 
deeds as insults.* Keep' your eye steadily fixed on the 
great reality of death, and all other things will shrink to their 
true proportions. As in a voyage, when a ship has come to 
anchor, if you have gone out to find water, you may amuse 
yourself with picking up a Httle shell or bulb, but you must 
keep your attention steadily fixed upon the ship, in case the 
captain should call, and then you must leave all such things 
lest you should be flung on board, bound like sheep. So in 
life ; if, instead of a little shell or bulb, some wifeling or 
childling be granted you, well and good ; but, if the captain 
call, run to the ship and leave such possessions behind you, 
not looking back. But if you <be an old man, take care not 
to go a long distance from the ship at all, lest you should be 
called and come too late." The metaphor is a significant 
one, and perhaps the following lines of Sir Walter Scott, 
prefixed anonymously to one of the chapters of the Waver- 
ley Novels, may help to throw light upon it : 

" Death finds us 'midst our playthings; snatches us, 
As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, 
From all our toys and baubles — the rough call 
Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth: 
And well if they are such as may be answered 
In yonder worldj where all is judged of truly." 

* Compare Cowper's Coivversation: — 

"Am I to set my life upon a throW 
Because a bear is rude and surly? — No.-^- 
' A modest, sensible, and well-bred man 
■ Will not insult me, and no other cam " . . 



2o8 EPTCTETUS. 

" Preserve your just relations to other men ; their mis- 
conduct does not affect your duties. Has your father done 
wrong, or your brother been unjust ? Still he is your 
father, he is your brother; and you must consider your 
relation to him, not whether he be worthy of it or no. 

" Your duty towards the gods is to form just and true 
opinions respecting them. Believe that they do all things 
well, and then you need never murmur or complain." 

" As rules of practice," says Epictetus, " prescribe to 
yourself an ideal, and then act up to it. Be mostly silent ; 
or, if you converse, do not let it be about vulgar and insig- 
nificant topics, such as dogs, horses, racing, or prize-fighting. 
Avoid foolish and immoderate laughter, vulgar entertain- 
ments, impurity, display, spectacles, recitations, and all 
egotistical remarks. Set before you the examples of the 
great and good. Do not be dazzled by mere appearances. 
Do what is right quite irrespective of what people will say 
or think. Remember that your body is a very small matter 
and needs but very little ; just as all that the foot needs is a 
shoe, and not a dazzling ornament of gold, purple, or 
jev/elled embroidery. To spend all one's time on the body, 
or on bodily exercises, shows a weak intellect. Do not be 
fond of criticising others, and do not resent their criticisms 
of you. Everything," he says, and this is one of his most 
characteristic precepts, "has two handles ! one by which it 
may be borne, the other by which it cannot. If your 
brother be unjust, do not take up the matter by that 
handle — the handle of his injustice — for that handle is the 
one by which it cannot be taken up j but rather by the 
handle that he is your brother an4 brought up with ycfu ; 
and then you will be taking it up as it can be borne. 

All these precepts have a general application, but Epic- 



HIS ''MANUAV AND ''FRAGMENTS:' 209 

tetus adds others on the right bearing of a philosopher; that 
is, of one whose professed ideal is higher than the multi- 
tude. He bids him above all things not to be censorious, 
and not to be ostentatious. " Feed on your own principles; 
do not throw them up to show how much you have eaten. 
Be self-denying, but do not boast of it. Be independent 
and moderate, and regard not the opinion or censure of 
others, but keep a watch upon yourself as your own most 
dangerous enemy. Do not plume yourself on an intellect- 
ual knowledge of philosophy, which is in itself quite value - 
less, but on a consistent nobleness of action. Never relax 
your efforts, but aim at perfection. Let everything which 
seems best be to you a law not to be transgressed; and 
whenever anything painful, or pleasurable, or glorious, or 
inglorious, is set before you, remember that now is the strug- 
gle, now is the hour of the Olympian contest, and it may not 
be put off, and that by a single defeat or yielding your 
advance in virtue may be either secured or lost. It was thus 
that Socrates attained perfection, by giving his heart to rea- 
son, and to reason only. And thou, even if as yet thou art 
not a Socrates, yet shouldst live as though it were thy wish to 
be one." These are noble words, but who that reads them 
will not be reminded of those sacred and far more deeply- 
reaching words, ^''Be ye perfect^ even as your Father' ivhich 
is in heavefi is perfects Behold^ now is the accepted time ; 
behold^ now is the day of salvation. 

In this brief sketch we have included all the most impor- 
tant thoughts in the Ma?iual. It ends in these words. "On 
all occasions we may keep in mind these three senti- 
ments :■ — 

'"Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye 
have appointed me to go, for I will follow, and that without 



no EPlCTETUS. 

delay. Should I be unwilling, I shall follow as a coward, 
but I must follow all the same.' (Cleanthes.) 

" 'Whosoever hath nobly yielded to necessity, I hold him 
wdse, and he knoweth the things of God.' (Euripides.) 

" And this third one also, ' O Crito, be it so, if so Jdc the 
^^^ll of heaven. Anytus and Melitus can indeed slay me, 
but harm me they cannot' (Socrates.) 

To this last conception of Hfe; quoted from the end of 
Plato's Apology, Epictetus recurs elsewhere: "^ATiat re- 
sources have we," he asks, "in circumstances of great peril? 
What other than the remembrance of what is or what is not 
in our own power; what is possible to us and what is not? 
I must die. Be it so; but need I die groaning? I must be 
bound ; but must I be bound bewailing ? I must be driven 
into exile, well, who prevent me then from going with laugh- 
ter, and cheerfulness, and calm of mind? 

"'Betray secrets.' 

"'Indeed I will not, for //^<3;/ rests in my o-^m hands.' 

" 'Then I -wall put you in chains.' 

"'My good sir, what are you talking about? Put me in 
chains ? No, no 1 you may put my leg in chains, but not 
even Zeus himself can master my \Adll.' 

" ' I will throw you into prison.' 

" ' My poor httle body; yes, no doubt.' 

'"I will cut off your head.' 

" ' Well did I ever tell you that my head was the only one 
which could not be cut off ?' 

"Such are the things of which philosophers should think, 
and ™te them daily, and exercise themselves therein." 

There are many other passages in which Epictetus shows 
that the free-will of man is his noblest privilege, and that 
we should not "sell it for a trifle;" or, as Scripture still 



HIS ''MANUAL'' AMD ''FRAGMENTS:' 211 

more sternly expresses it, should not "sell ourselves for 
nought." He relates, for instance, the complete failure of 
the Emperor Vespasian to induce Helvidius Priscus not to 
go to the Senate. "While I am a Senator," said Helvidius, 
"1 must gor "Well, then, at least be silent there." "Ask 
me no questions, and I will be silent." "But I must ask 
your opinion." And /must say what is right." "But I 
will put you to death." "Did I ever tell you I was immor- 
tal? Do your part, and /will do 77iine. It is yours to kill 
me, mine to die untrembling; yours to banish me, mine to 
go into banishment without grief." 

We see from these remarkable extracts that the wisest of 
the heathen had, by God's grace, attained to the sense that 
life was subject to a divine guidance. Yet how dim was 
their vision of this truth, how insecure their hold upon it, in 
comparison with that which the meanest Christian may 
attain! They never definitely grasped the doctrine of 
immortality. They never quite got rid of a haunting dread 
that perhaps, after all, they might be nothing better than 
insignificant and unheeded atoms, swept hither and thither 
in the mighty eddies of an unseen, impersonal, mysterious 
agency, and destined hereafter "to be sealed amid the iron 
hills," or 

"To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, 
And blown with reckless violence about 
The pendent world." 

Their belief in a personal deity was confused with their 
belief in nature, which^ in the language of a modern scep- 
tic, "acts with fearful uniformity: stern as fate, absolute as 
tyranny, merciless as death ; too vast to praise, too inexora- 
ble to propitiate, it has no ear for prayer, no heart for sym- 



212 EPICTETUS. 

pathy, no arm to save." How different the soothing and 
tender certainty of the Christian's hope, for -whom Christ 
has brought life and immortahty to hght! For "chance" 
is not only "the daughter of forethought," as the old Greek 
lyric poet calls her, but the daughter also of love. How 
different the prayer of David, even in the hours of his worst 
agony and shame, ^'Let Thy loving Spirit lead me forth into 
the land of righteoicsnessr Guidance, and guidance by the 
hand of love, was — as even in that dark season he recog- 
nised — the very law of his life; and his soul, purged by 
affliction, had but a single wish — the wish to be led, not 
into prosperity, not into a recovery of his lost glory, not 
even into the restoration of his lost innocence ; but only, — 
through paths however hard — only into the land of right- 
eousness. And because he knew that God would lead him 
thitherward, he had no wish, no care for anything beyond. 
We will end this chapter by translating a few of the iso- 
lated fragments of Epictetus which have been preserved for 
us by other writers. The wisdom and beauty of these frag- 
ments will interest the reader, for Epictetus was one of the 
few "in the very dust of whose thoughts was gold." 



"A life entangled with accident is like a wintry ton-ent, 
for it is turbulent, and foul with mud, and impassable, and 
tyrannous, and loud, and brief" 

"A soul that dwells with virtue is like a perennial spring; 
for it is pure, and limpid, and refreshful, and inviting, and 
serviceable, and rich, and innocent, and uninjurious." 



"If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad." 



HIS ^'MANUAU' AND ''FRAGMENTSy 213 

Compare Matt. ix. 12, "They that be whole need not a 
physician, but they that are sick;" John ix. 41, "Now 
ye say, We lee, therefore your sin remaineth;" and i John 
i. 8, " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, 
and the truth is not in us." 



"It is base for one who sweetens that which he drinks 
with the gifts of bees, to embitter by vice his reason, which 
is the gift of God." 



" Nothing is meaner than the love of pleasure, the love 
of gain, and insolence : nothing nobler than high-minded- 
ness, and gentleness, and philanthropy, and doing good." 



"The vine bears three clusters: the first of pleasure; 
the second of drun"kenness ; the third of insult." 

"He is a drunkard who drinks more than three cups; 
even if he be not drunken, he has exceeded moderation." 

Our own George Herbert has laid down the same 
Umit : — 

' ' Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay, 
Stay at the third cup, or forego the place^ 
Wine, above ail things doth God's stamp deface." 



" Like the beacon-lights in harbours, which, kindling a 
great blaze by means of a few fagotSj\afford sufficient aid 
to vessels that wander ewer tbe "sea, so, also, a man of bright 
character in a storm-tossed city, himself content with little, 
effects great blessings for bis f^Uow-dtizens," 






214 EPICTETUS. 

The thought is not unlike that of Shakespeare ; 

" How far yon little candle throws its beams, 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world." 

But the metaphor which Epictetus more commonly 
adopts is one no less beautiful. " What good," asked some 
one, " did Helvidius Priscus do in resisting Vespasian, 
being but a single person ?" " What good," answers 
Epictetus, " does the purple do on the garment ? Why, it 
is splendid in itself, and splendid also in the example which 
it affords r 



"As the sun does not wait for prayers and incanta- 
tions that he may rise, but shines at once, and is greeted 
by all; so neither wait thou for applause, and shouts, 
and eulogies, that thou mayst do well; — but be a spon- 
taneous benefactor, and thou shalt be beloved Hke the 
stm." 



" Thales, when asked what was the commonest of all 
possessions, answered, ' Hope ; for even those who have 
nothing else have hope.' " 

" Lead) lead me on, my hopes," says Mr. Macdonald ; 
"I know that ye are true and not vain. Vanish from 
my eyes day after day, but arise in new forms. I will 
follow your holy deception ; follow till ye have brought 
me to the feet of my Father in heaven, where I shall 
find you all, with folded wings, spangling the sapphire dusk 
whereon stands His throne which is our home. 



HIS ''MANUAL'' AND ''FRAGMENTS:' 215 

" What ought not to be done do not even think of 
doing." 
Compare 

*' ' Guard well yoiix thoughts for thoughts are heard in heaven.' " 



Epictetus, when asked how a man could grieve his 
enemy, repHed, " By preparing himself to act in the noblest 
way." 

Compare Rom. xii. 20, "If thine enemy hunger, feed 
him j if he thirst, give him drink : for in so doing thou shalt 
heap coals of fire on his head'' 



" If you always remember that in all you do in soul or 
body God stands by as a witness, in all your prayers und 
your actions you will not en-; and you shall have God 
dwelling with you." 

Compare Rev. iii. 30, " Behold I stand at the door and 
knock : if any man hear my voice, and open the door, 
I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with 
mer 

In the discourse written to prove that God keeps watch 
upon human actions, Epictetus touches again on the same 
topic, saying that God has placed beside each one of us 
his own guardian spirit— a spirit that sleeps not and cannot 
be beguiled — and has handed us each over to that spirit to 
protect us» " And to what better or more careful guardian 
could He have entrusted us ? So that when you have 
closed your doors and made darkness within, remember 
never to sa^ that you are alone. For you are not alone^ 



2i6 EPICTETUS. 

God, too, is present there, and your guardian spirit ; and 
what need have they of Hght to see what you are doing." 

There is in this passage an almost startling coincidence 
of thought with those eloquent words in the Book of Eccle- 
siasticus : "A man that breaketh wedlock, saying thus in 
his heart, Who seeth me ? I am co?npassed about with 
darkness, the walls cover me, and nobody seeth 7ne : what 
need I to fear ? the Most Highest will notr emember my sins: 
such a man 07ily feareth the eyes of man, and knoweth not 
that the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter 
than the sun, beholding all the ways of men, and consider- 
ing the most secret parts. He knew all things ere ever 
they were created : so also after they were perfected He 
looked upon all. This man shall be punished in the streets 
of the city, and where he expecteth not he shall be taken." 
(Ecclus. xxiii. ii — 21.) 

" When we were children, our parents entrusted us to a 
tutor who kept a continual watch that we might not suffer 
harm ; but, when we grow to manhood, God hands us over 
to an inborn conscience to guard us. We must, therefore, 
by no means despise this guardianship, since in that case 
we shall both be displeasing to God and enemies to our 
own conscience." 

Beautiful and remarkable as these fragments are we have 
no space for more, and must conclude by comparing the 
last with the celebrated lines of George Herbert : — 

** Lord 1 with What care hast Thou begirt us round 1 
Parents first season zis. ThM schoolmast^s 

Deliver us to lams. They send us bound 
To rules of reason. Holy meissengers;. 

Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin; 
Afflictions sorted; anguish of all sizes; 



HIS ''MANUAL'' AND ''FRAGMENTS:' 217 

Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in ! 

Bibles laid open; millions of surprises; 
Blessings beforehand; ties of gratefulness; 

The sound of glory ringing in our ears; 
Without one shame; within oiir consciences; 

Angels and grace; eternal hopes and fears ! 
Yet all these fences and their whole array, 
One cunning bosom sin blows quite away." 



CHAPTER V. 

THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS. 

The Discourses of Epictetus, as originally published by 
Arrian, contained eight books, of which only four have 
come down to us. They are in many respects the most 
valuable expression of his views. There is something 
slightly repellent in the stern concision, the " imperious 
brevity," of the Manual. In the Manual^ says M. Martha,* 
"the reason of the Stoic proclaims its laws with an impassi- 
bility which is little human ; it imposes silence on all the pas- 
sions, even the most respectable; it glories in waging against 
them an internecine war, and seems even to wish to repress 
the most legitimate impulses of generous sensibility. In 
reading these rigorous maxims one might be tempted to be- 
lieve th^ this legislator of morality is a man without a heart, 
and, if we were not touched by the original sincerity of the 
language, one would only see in this lapidary style the con- 
ventional precepts of a chimerical system or the aspirations 
of an impossible perfection." The Discowses are more il- 
lustrative, more argumentative, more diffuse, more human. 
In reading them one feels oneself face to face with a human 
being, not with the marble statue of the ideal wise man. 
The style, indeed, is simple, but its " athletic nudity " is 
* Moralistes sous I'Empire, p. 200. 



HIS ''DISCOURCESy 219 

well suited to this militant morality ; its picturesque and in- 
cisive character, its vigorous metaphors, i(s vulgar expres- 
sions, its absence of all conventional elegance, display a cer- 
tain " plebeian originality " which gives them an almost 
autobiographic charm. With trenchant logic and intrepid 
conviction " he wrestles with the passions, questions them, 
makes them answer, and confounds them in a few words 
which are often sublime. This Socrates without grace does 
not amuse us by making his adversary fall into the long en- 
tanglement of a captious dialogue, but he rudely seizes and 
often finishes him with two blows. It is like the eloquence 
of Phocion, which Demosthenes compares to an axe which 
is lifted and falls." 

Epictetus, like Seneca, is a preacher ; a preacher with 
less wealth of genius, less eloquence of expression, less 
width of culture, but with far more bravery, clearness, con- 
sistency, and grasp of his subject. His doctrine and his life 
were singularly homogeneous, and his views admit of brief 
expression, for they are not weakened by any fluctuations, 
or chequered with any lights and shades. The Discourses 
differ from the Manual only in their manner, their frequent 
anecdotes, their pointed illustrations, and their vivid inter- 
locutory form. The remark of Pascal, that Epictetus knew 
the grandeur of the human heart, but did not know its 
weakness, applies to the Manual but can hardly be main- 
tained when we judge him by some of the answers which he 
gave to those who came to seek for his consolation or ad- 
vice. 

The Discourses are not systematic in their character, 
and, even if they were, the loss of the last four books would 
prevent us from working out their system with any com- 
pleteness. Our sketch of the Manual y^'iSi already have put 



220 EPICTETUS. 

the reader in possession of the main principles and ideas of 
Epictetus ; with the mental and physical philosophy of the 
schools he did not in any way concern himself; it was his 
aim to be a moral preacher, to ennoble the lives of men 
and touch their hearts. He neither plagiarised nor in- 
vented, but he gave to Stoicism a practical reality. All that 
remains for us to do is to choose from the Discoiiises some 
of his most characteristic views, and the modes by which 
he brought them home to his hearers. 

It was one of the most essential peculiarities of Stoicism 
to aim at absolute independence, or j-d-^dependence. Now, 
as the weaknesses and servilities of men arise most fre- 
quently from their desire for superfluities, the true man 
must absolutely get rid of any such desire. He must in- 
crease his wealth by moderating his wishes ; he must de- 
spise ^//the luxuries for which men long, and he must 
greatly diminish the number of supposed necessaries. We 
have already seen some of the arguments which point in 
this direction, and we may add another from the third book 
of Discourses. 

A certain magnificent orator, who was going to Rome on 
a lawsuit, had called on Epictetus. The philosopher threw 
cold water on his visit, because he did not believe in his 
sincerity. " You will get no more from me," he said, 
" than you would get from any cobbler or greengrocer, for 
you have only come because it happened to be convenient, 
and you will only criticise my style, not really wishing to 
\^d.TXi principles r "Well, but," answered the orator, "if I 
attend to that sort of thing, I shall be a mere pauper like 
you, with no plate, or equipage, or land." " I don't want 
such things," replied Epictetus ; " and, besides, you are 
poorer than I am, after all." "Why, how so?" "You 



His ''DiSCOURCES:' 221 

have no constancy, no unanimity with nature, no freedom 
from perturbations. Patron or no patron, what care I ? 
You do care. I am richer than you. / don't care what 
Caesar thinks of me. / flatter no one. This is what I have 
instead of your silver and gold plate. You have silver ves- 
sels, but earthenware reasons, principles, appetites. My 
mind to me a kingdom is, and it furnishes me abundant 
and happy occupation in lieu of your restless idleness. All 
your possessions seem small to you, mine seem great to 
me. Your desire is insatiate, mine is satisfied." The com- 
parison with which he ends the discussion is very remark- 
able. I once had the privilege of hearing Sir WilHam 
Hooker explain to the late Queen Adelaide the contents of 
the Kew Museum. Among them was a cocoa-nut with a 
hole in it, and Sir William explained to the Queen that in 
certain parts of India, when the natives want to catch the 
monkeys they make holes in cocoa-nuts^ and fill them with 
sugar. The monkeys thrust in their hands and fill them 
with sugar ; the aperture is too small to draw the paws out 
again when thus increased in size ; the monkeys have not 
the sense to loose their hold of the sugar, and so they are 
caught. This little anecdote will enable the reader to relish 
the illustration of Epictetus. " When little boys thrust 
their hands into narrow-mouthed jars full of figs and al- 
monds, when they have filled their hands they cannot draw 
them out again, and so begin to howl. Let- go a few of the 
figs and almonds, and you'll get your hand out. And so 
yoii^ let go your desires. Don't desire many things, and 
you'll get what you do desire." " Blessed is he that ex- 
pecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed !" 

Another of the constant precepts of Epictetus is that we 
should aim high ; we are not to be common threads in the 



222 EPICTETUS. 

woof of life, but like the laticlave on the robe of a senator, 
the broad purple stripe which gave lustre and beauty to the 
whole. But how are we to know that we are qualified for 
this high function ? How does the bull know, when the 
lion approaches, that it is his place to expose himself for all 
the herd ? If we have high powers we shall soon be con- 
scious of them, and if we have them not we may gradually 
acquire them. Nothing great is produced at once, — the 
vine must blossom, and bear fruit, and ripen, before we 
have the purple clusters of the grape, — "first the blade, then 
the ear, after that the full corn in the ea." 

But whence are we to derive this high sense of duty and 
possible eminence ? Why, if Caesar had adopted you, would 
you not show your proud sense of ennoblement in haughty 
looks ; how is it that you are not proud -of being sons of 
God ? You have, indeed, a body, by \drtue of which many 
men sink into close kinship with pernicious wolves, and 
savage Uons, and crafty foxes, destroying the rational within 
them, and so becoming greedy cattle or mischievous ver- 
min ; but above and beyond this, " If," says Epictetus, "a 
man have once been worthily interpenetrated with the be- 
Hef that we all have been in some special manner born of 
God, and that God is the Father of gods and men, I think 
that he will never have any ignoble, any humble thoughts 
about himself." Our own great Milton has hardly ex- 
pressed this high truth more nobly when he says, that " He 
that holds himself in reverence and due esteem, both for the 
dignity of God's image upon him, and for the price of his 
redemption, which he thinks is visibly marked upon his fore- 
Lead, accounts himself both a fit person to do the noblest 
and godliest deeds, and much better worth than to deject 
and defile, with such a debasement and pollution as sin is, 



Mis ''DlSCOURCBS:' i23 

himself so highly ransomed, and ennobled to a new friend- 
ship and filial relation with God." 

" And how are we to know that we have made progress ? 
We may know it if our own wills are bent to live in conform- 
ity with nature; if we be noble, free, faithful, humble; if 
desiring nothing, and shunning nothing which lies beyond 
our power, we sit loose to all earthly interests ; if our lives 
are under the distinct governance of immutable and noble 
laws. 

'' But shall >ve not meet with troubles in life ? Yes, un- 
doubtedly ; and are there none at Olympia ? Are you not 
burnt with heat, and pressed for room, and wetted with 
showers when it rains ? Is there not more than enough 
clamour, and shouting, and other troubles ? Yet I suppose 
you tolerate and endure all these when you balance them 
against the magnificence of the spectacle? And, come 
now, have you not received powers wherewith to bear what- 
ever occurs "> Have you not received magnanimity, cour- 
age, fortitude ? And why, if I am magnanimous, should I 
care for anything that can possibly happen ? what shall 
alarm or trouble me, or seem painful ? Shall I not use the 
faculty for the ends for which it was granted me, or shall I 
grieve and groan at all the accidents of- life ? On the con- 
trary, these troubles and difficulties are strong antagonists 
pitted against us, and we may conquer them, if we will, in 
the Olympic game of life. 

" But if life and its burdens become absolutely intoler- 
able, may we not go back to God, from whom we came ? 
may we not show thieves and robbers, and tyrants who 
claim power over us by means of our bodies and posses- 
sions, that they have ;z(? /^2x/<?r .? In a word, may we not 



224 EPiCTETUS. 

commit suicide ?" We know how Shakespeare treats this 
question : — 

" For who would bear the whips and scorns of time^ 
Th' oppressor's wi^ong, the proud man's contumely, 
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, 
The insolence of office, and the spurns 
"Which patient merit of the unworthy takes, 
When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin ? Who would these fardels bear, 
To grimt and sweat under a weary life. 
But that the dread of somethmg after death ^ 
The undiscovered country fron whose bourne 
No traveller returns^ puzzles the will : 
A nd makes us rather bear those ills we have 
Than fly to others that we know not of ?'''' 

But Epictetus had no materials for such an answer. I 
do not remember a single passage in which he refers to im- 
mortahty or the Ufe to come, and it is therefore probable 
either that he did not believe in it at all, or that he put it 
aside as one of those things which are out of our own power. 
Yet his answer is not that glorification of suicide which we 
find throughout the tragedies of Seneca, and which was one 
of the commonplaces of Stoicism. " My friends," he says, 
" wait God's good time till He gives you the signal, and 
dismisses you from this service ; then dismiss yourself to go 
to Him. But for the present restrain yourselves, inhabiting 
the spot which He has at present assigned you. For, after 
all, this time of your sojourn here is short, and easy for 
those who are thus disposed ; for what tyrant, or thief, or 
judgment-halls, are objects of dread to those who thus ab- 
solutely disesteem the body and its belongings? Stay, then, 
and do not depart without due cause." 

It will be seen that Epictetus permits suicide without ex- 



HIS ''DISCOURCES:' 225 

tolling it, for in another place (ii. i) he says: " What is 
pain ? A mere ugly mask ; turn it, and see that it is so. 
This little flesh of ours is acted on roughly, and then again 
smoothly. If it is not for your interest to bear it, the door 
is open ; if it is for your interest — endure. It is right that 
under all circumstances the door should be open, since so 
men end all trouble." 

This power of endii7'a?ice is completely the keynote of the 
Stoical view of life, and the method of attaining to it, by 
practising contempt for all external accidents, is constantly 
inculcated. I have already told the anecdote about Agrip- 
pinus by which Epictetus admiringly shows that no extreme 
of necessary misfortune could wring from the true Stoic a 
single expression of indignation or of sorrow. 

The inevitable, then, in the view of the Stoics, comes 
from God, and it is our duty not to murmur against it. Bnt 
this being the guiding conception as regards ourselves, how 
are we to treat others ? Here, too, our duties spring 
directly from our relation to God. It is that relation which 
makes us reverence ourselves, it is that which should make 
us honour others. " Slave ! will you not bear with your 
own brother, who has God for his father no less than you ? 
But they are wicked, perhaps — thieves and murderers. Be 
it so, then they deserve all the more pity. You don't ex- 
terminate the blind or deaf because of their misfortunes, but 
you pity them : and how much more to be pitied are wicked 
men? Don't execrate them. Are you yourself so very 
wise ?" 

Nor are the precepts of Epictetus all abstract principles ; 
he often pauses to give definite rules of conduct and prac- 
tice. Nothing, for instance, can exceed the ^visdom with 
which he speaks of habits (ii. 18), and the best means of 



226 EPICTETUS. 

acquiring good habits and conquering evil ones. He points 
out that we are the creatures of habit ; that every single act 
is a definite grain in the sand-multitude of influences which 
make up our daily life ; that each time we are angry or evil- 
inclined we are adding fuel to a fire, and virulence to the 
seeds of a disease. A fever may be cured, but it leaves the 
health weaker; and so also is it with the diseases of the 
soul. They leave their mark behind them. 

Take the instance of anger. " Do you wish not to be 
passionate ? do not then cherish the habit within you, and 
do not add any stimulant thereto. Be calm at first, and 
then number the days in which you have not been in a rage. 
I used to be angry every day, now it is only every other 
day, then every third, then every fourth day. But should 
you have passed even thirty days without a relapse, then 
offer a sacrifice to God. Por the habit is first loosened, 
then utterly eradicated. ' I did not yield to vexation to- 
day, nor the next day, nor so on for two or three months, 
but I restrained myself under various provocations.' Be 
sure, if you can say that, that it will soon be all right with 
you." 

But how is one to do all this ? that is the great question, 
and Epictetus is quite ready to give you the best answer he 
can. We have, for instance, already quoted one passage in 
which (unlike the majority of Pagan moralists) he shows 
that he has thoroughly mastered the ethical importance of 
controlling even the thought of wickedness. Another anec- 
dote about Agrippinus will further illustrate the same doc- 
trine. It was the wicked practice of Nero to make noble 
Romans appear on the stage or in gladiatorial shows, in 
order that he might thus seem to have their sanction for his 
own degrading displays. On one occasion Florus, who was 



HIS ''DISCOURSES:' 227 

doubting whether or not he should obey the mandate, con- 
sulted Agrippinus on the subject. " Go by all means ^' re- 
plied Agrippinus. " But why don't you go, then ?" asked 
Florus. "^^^^z/j^," said Agrippinus, '''■ I do 7iot deliberate 
about it,'^ He implied by this answer that to hesitate is to 
yield, to dehberate is to be lost ; we must act always on 
pri7iciples^ we must never pause to calculate consequences. 
" But if I don't go," objected Florus, "I shall have my head 
cut off." " Well, then, go, but /won't." " Why won't you 
go?" "Because I do not care to be of a piece with the 
common thread of life; I like to be the purple sewn upon 
it." 

And if we want a due motive for such lofty choice Epic- 
tetus will supply it. " Wish," he says, " to win the suffrages 
of your own inward approval, wish to appear beautiful to 
God. Desire to be pure with your own pure self, and with 
God. And when any evil fancy assails you, Plato says, ' Go 
to the rites of expiation, go as a suppliant to the temples of 
the gods, the averters of evil.' But it will be enough should 
you even rise and depart to the society of the noble and the 
good, to live according to their examples, whether you have 
any such friend among the living or among the dead. Go 
to Socrates, and gaze .on his utter mastery over temptation 
and passion ; consider how glorious was the conscious vic- 
tory over himself ! What an Olympic triumph ! How near 
does it place him to Hercules himself So that, by heaven, 
one might justly salute him, ' Hail, marvellous conqueror, 
who hast conquered, not these miserable boxers and ath- 
letes, nor these gladiators who resemble them.' And should 
you thus be accustomed to train yourself, you will see what 
shoulders you will get, what nerves, what sinews, instead of 
mere babblements, and nothing more. This is the true 

7 : 



228 EPICTETUS. 

athlete, the man who trains himself to deal with such sem- 
blances as these. Great is the struggle, divine the deed ; it 
is for kingdom, for freedom, for tranquillity, for peace. 
Think on God ; call upon Him as thine aid and champion, 
as sailors call on the Great Twin Brethren in the storm. 
And indeed what storm is greater than that which rises 
from powerful semblances that dash reason out of its 
course ? What indeed but semblance is a • storm itself ? 
Since, come now, remove the fear of death, and bring as 
many thunders and lightnings as thou wilt, and thou shalt 
know how great is the tranquilUty and calm in that reason 
which is the ruHng faculty of the soul. But should you 
once be worsted, and say that you will conquer hereafter^ 
and then the same again and again, know that thus your 
condition will be vile and weak, so that at the last you will 
not even know that you are doing wrong, but you ■v\all even 
begin to provide excuses for your sin ; and then you will 
confirm the truth of that saying of Hesiod, — 

" ' The man that procrastinates struggles ever with ruin.' " 

Even so! ' So early did a heathen moraHst learn the 
solemn fact that "only this once" ends in "there is no 
harm in it." Well does Mr. Coventry Patmore sing : — 

" How easy to keep free from sin ; 
How hard that freedom to recall ; 
For awful truth it is that men 

Forget the heaven from which they fall." 

In another place Epictetus warns us, however, not to be 
too easily discouraged in our attempts after good ; — and, 
above all, never to despair. " In the schools of the wrest- 



HIS ''discourses:' 229 

ling master, when a boy falls he is bidden to get up again, 
and to go on wrestling day by day till he has acquired 
strength ; and we must do the same, and not be like those 
poor wretches who after one failure suffer themselves to be 
swept along as by a torrent. You need but will^' he says, 
" and it is done ; but if you relax your efforts, you will be 
ruined ; for ruin and recovery are both from within. — And 
what will you gain by all this ? You will gain modesty for 
inpudence, purity for \ileness, moderation for drunkenness. 
If you think there are any better ends than these, then by 
all means go on in sin, for you are beyond the power of any 
god to save." 

But Epictetus is particularly in earnest about warning us 
that to profess these principles and talk about them is one 
thing — to act up to them quite another. He drav/s a humor- 
ous picture of an inconsistent and unreal philosopher, who 
— after eloquently proving that nothing is good but what 
pertains to virtue, and nothing evil but what pertains to vice, 
and that all other things are indifferent — goes to sea. A 
storm comes on, and the masts creak, and the philoso- 
pher screams ; and an impertinent person stands by and 
asks in surprise, ''Is it then vice to suffer shipwreck ? 
because, if not, it can be no evil /' a question which makes 
our philosopher so angry that he is incHned to fling a log at 
his interlocutor's head. But Epictetus sternly tells him that 
the philosopher never was one at all, except in name ; that 
as he sat in the schools puffed up b^ homage and adulation, 
his innate cowardice and conceit were but hidden under bor- 
rowed plumes ; and that in him the name of Stoic was usurped. 

"Why," he asks in another passage, "why do you cal^ 
yourself a Stoic ? Why do you deceive the multitude ? 
Why do you act the Jew when you are a Greek ? Don't 



230 EPICTETUS, 

you see on what terms each person is called a Jew ? or a 
Syrian ? or an Egyptian ? And when we see some mere 
t?-iminer we are in the habit of saying, *This is no Jew ; he 
is only acting the part of one;' but when a man tahes up 
the entire condition of a proselyte, thoroughly imbued ^^^th 
Jewish doctrines, then he both is in reality and is called a 
Jqw. So we philosophers too, dipped in a false dye, are 
Jews in name^ but in 7'eality are somethi77g else. . . . AA'e 
call ourselves philosophers when we cannot even play the 
part of men, as though a man should try to heave the stone 
of Ajax who cannot lift ten pounds." The passage is inter- 
esting not only on its own account, but because of its cmi- 
ous similarity both with the language and with the sentiment 
of St. Paul — " He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, 
neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, 
but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is 
that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the latter ; whose 
praise is not of men, but of God" 

The best way to become a philosopher in deed is not by 
a mere study of books and knowledge of doctrines, but by 
a steady dihgence of actions and adherence to original prin- 
ciples, to which must be added consistency and self-con- 
trol. " These principles," says Epictetus, " produce friend- 
ship in a house, unanimity in a city, peace in nations ; they 
make a man grateful to God, bold under all circumstances, 
as though dealing with things alien and valueless. Now we 
are capable of ^mting these things, and reading them, and 
praising them when they are read, but we are far enough off 
following them. Hence comes it that the reproach of the 
LaceQ9sm.onians, that they are 'hons at home, foxes at 
Ephesus,' will also apply to us ; in the school we are lions, 
out of it foxes." 



HIS ''DISCOURSES^ 231 

These passages include, I think, all the most original, im- 
portant, and characteristic conceptions which are to be 
found in the Discomses. They are most prominently illus- 
trated in the long and important chapter on the Cynic phil- 
osophy. A genuine Cynic — one who was so, not in bru- 
tality of manners or ostentation of rabid eccentricity, but a 
C}Tiic in life and in his inmost principles — was evidently in 
the eyes of Epictetus'one of the loftiest of human beings. 
He drew a sketch of his ideal conception to one of his 
scholars who inquired of him upon the subject. 

He begins by saying that a true Cynic is so lofty a being 
that he who undertakes the profession without due qualifica- 
tions kindles against him the anger of heaven. He is like a 
scurrilous Thersites, claiming the imperial office of an Aga- 
memnon. " If you think," he tells the young student, " that 
you can be a Cynic merely by wearing an old cloak, and 
sleeping on a hard bed, and using a wallet and staff, and 
begging, and rebuking every one whom you see effeminately 
dressed or wearing purple, you don't know what you are 
about — get you gone ; but if you know what a Cynic really 
is, and think yourself capable of being one, then consider 
how great a thing you are undertaking. 

" First as to yourself You must be absolutely resigned 
to the will of God. You must conquer every passion, abro- 
gate every desire. Your life must be transparently open to 
the view of God and man. Other men conceal their actions 
with houses, and doors, and darkness, and guards ; your 
house, your door, your darkness, must be a sense of holy 
shame. You must conceal nothing ; you must have noth- 
ing to conceal. You must ^e known as the spy and mes- 
senger of God among mankind. 

" You must teach men that happiness is not there, where 



232 EPICTETUS. 

in their blindness and misery they seek it. It is not in 
strength, for M}to and Ofellius were not happy : not in 
wealth, for Croesus was not happy : not in power, for the 
Consuls are not happy : not in all these together, for Nero, 
and Sardanapalus, and Agamemnon sighed, and wept, and 
tore their hair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the 
dupes of semblances. It lies in yourselves : in true free- 
dom, in the absence or conquest of ever)^ ignoble fear; in 
perfect self-government ; in a power of contentment and 
peace, and the ' even flow of life ' amid poverty, exile, dis- 
ease, and the very valley of the shadow of death. Can you 
face this Olympic contest? Are your thews and sinews 
strong enough ? Can you face the fact that those who are 
defeated are also disgraced and whipped ? 

" Only by God's aid can you attain to this. Only by His 
aid can you be beaten like an ass, and yet love those who 
beat you, preserving an unshaken unanimity in the midst of 
circumstances w^hich to other men would cause trouble, and 
grief, and disappointment, and despair. 

" The Cynic must learn to do without friends, for where 
can he find a friend worthy of him, or a king worthy of shar- 
ing his moral sceptre ? The friend of the truly noble must 
be as truly noble as himself, and such a friend the genuine 
Cynic cannot hope to find. Nor must he marr}^ ; marriage 
is right and honourable in other men, but its entanglements, 
its expenses, its distractions, would render impossible a life 
devoted to the ser^dce of heaven. 

'•' Nor will he mingle in the affairs of any commonwealth : 
his commonwealth is not Athens or Corinth, but mankind. 

" In person he should be strong, and robust, and hale, 
and in spite of his indigence always clean and attractive. 
Tact and intelligence, and a power of swift repartee, are 



HIS '^discourses:' 233 

necessary to him. His conscience must be clear as the 
smi. He must sleep purely, and wake still more purely. 
To abuse and insult he must be as insensible as a stone, 
, and he must place all fears and desires beneath his feet. 
To be a Cynic is to be this : before you attempt it delib- 
erate well, and see whether by the help of God you are cap- 
able of achieving it. 

I have given a sketch of the doctrines of this lofty chap- 
ter, but fully to enjoy its morality and eloquence the reader 
should study it entire, and observe its generous impatience, 
its noble ardour, its vivid interrogations, " in which," says 
M. Martha, " one feels as it were a frenzy of virtue and of 
piety, and in which the plenitude of a great heart tumultu- 
ously precipitates a torrent of holy thoughts." 

Epictetus was not a Christian. He has only once al- 
luded to the Christians in his works, and there it is under 
the opprobrious title of " Galileans," who practised a kind 
of insensibility in painful circumstances and an indifference 
to worldly interests which Epictetus unjustly sets down to 
"mere habit." Unhappily it was not granted to these 
heathen philosophers in any true sense to know what 
Christianity was. They ignorantly thought that it was an 
attempt to imitate the results of philosophy, without having 
passed through the necessary discipHne. They viewed it 
with suspicion, they treated it with injustice. And yet in 
Christianity, and in Christianity alone, they would have 
found an ideal which would have surpassed their loftiest 
conceptions. Nor was it only an impossible ideal ; it v/as 
an ideal rendered attainable by the impressive sanction of 
the highest authority, and one v/hich supported men to bear 
the difficulties of life with fortitude, with peacefulness, and 
even with an inward joy ; it ennobled their faculties without 



234 EPICTETUS. 

overstraining them ; it enabled them to disregard the bur- 
den of present trials, not by vainly attempting to deny their 
bitterness or ignore their weight, but in the high certainty 
that they are the brief and necessary prelude to " a far 
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 



MARCUS AURELIUS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR. 

The life of the noblest of Pagan Emperors may well follow 
that of the noblest of Pagan slaves. Their glory shines the 
purer and brighter from the midst of a corrupt and deplor- 
able society. Epictetus showed that a Phrygian slave could 
live a life of the loftiest exaltation ; Aurelius proved that a 
Roman Emperor could live a life of the deepest humility. 
The one — a foreigner, feeble, deformed, ignorant, born in 
squalor, bred in degradation, the despised chattel of a des- 
picable freedman, surrounded by every depressing, ignoble, 
and pitiable circumstance of life — showed how one who 
seemed born to be a wretch could win noble happiness and 
immortal memory; the other — a Roman, a patrician, strong, 
of heavenly beauty, of noble ancestors, almost born to the 
purple, the favourite of Emperors, the greatest conquerer, 
the greatest philosopher, the greatest ruler of his time — 
proved for ever that it is possible to be virtuous, and tender, 
and holy, and contented in the midst of sadness, even on 
an irresponsible and imperial throne. Strange that, of the 



236 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

two, the Emperor is even sweeter, more simple, more admi- 
rable, more humbly and touchingly resigned, than the slave. 
In him. Stoicism loses all its haughty self-assertion, all its 
impracticable paradox, for a manly melancholy which at 
o ce troubles and charms the heart. "It seems," says M. 
Martha, "that in him the philosophy of heathendom grows 
less proud, draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which 
it ignored or which it despised, and is ready to fling itself 
into the arms of the ' Unknown God.' In the sad Medita- 
iioiLS of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, sweetness, and 
docility to the commands of God, which before him were 
unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed. 
If he has not yet attained to charity in all that fulness of 
meaning which Christianity has given to the word he has 
already gained its unction, and one cannot read his book, 
unique in the history of Pagan philosophy, without thinking 
of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of Fenelon. 
We must pause before this soul, so lofty and so pure, to 
contemplate ancient virtue in its softest brihiancy, to see the 
moral deHcacy to which profane doctrines have attained - 
how they laid down their pride, and how penetrating a grace 
they have found in their new simplicity. To make the 
example yet more strikmg, Providence, which, according to 
the Stoics, does nothing by chance, determined that the 
example of these simple virtues should bloom in the midst 
of all human grandeur — that charity should be taught by 
the successor of blood stained Caesars, and humbleness of 
heart by an Emperor " 

Aurelius has always exercised a powerful fascination over 
the minds of eminent men " If you set aside, for a mo- 
ment, the contemplation of the Christian verities," says the 
eloquent and thoughtful Montesquieu, "search throughout 



THE EDUCATIOX OF AX EMPEROR. 237 

all nature, and you will not find a grander object than the 

Antonines One feels a secret pleasure in speaking of 

this Emperor; one cannot read his life without a softening 
feeling of emotion. He produces such an effect upon our 
minds that we think better of ourselves, because he inspires 
us with a better opinion of mankind." " It is more delight- 
ful," says the great historian Niebuhr, "to speak of Marcus 
AureUus than of any man in history; for if there is any sub- 
lime human virtue it is his. He was certainly the noblest 
character of his time, and I knoA^ no other man who com- 
bined such unaffected kindness, mildness, and humility, with 
such conscientiousness and severity towards himself. We 
possess innumerable busts of him, for every Roman of his 
time was anxious to possess his portrait, and if there is any- 
where an expression of virtue it is in the heavenly features 
of Marcus Aurelius." 

Marcus Aurelius was born on April 26, a. d. 121. His 
more correct designation would be Marcus Antoninus, but 
since he bore several different names at different periods of 
his life, and since at that age nothing was more common 
than a change of designation, it is hardly worth while to 
alter the name by which he is most popularly recognised. 
His father, Annius Verus, who died in his Prsetorship, drew 
his blood from a line of illustrious men who claimed descent 
from Numa, the second King of Rome. His mother, Domi- 
tia Calvilla, was also a lady of consular and kingly race. 
The character of both seems to have been worthy of the'.r 
high dignity. Of his father he can have known little, since 
Annius died when Aurelius was a mere infant ; but in his 
Meditations he has left us a grateful memorial of both his 
parents. He says that from his grandfather he learned (or, 
might have learned) good morals and the government of his 



2:,'^ MARCUS AURELIUS. 

temper ; from the reputation and remembrance of his father, 
modesty and manliness; from his mother, piety, and benefi- 
cence, and abstinence not only frojji evil deeds, but even from 
evil thoughts ; and, further, simphcity of life far removed 
from the habits of the rich. 

The childhood and boyhood of Aurelius fell during the 
reig 1 of Hadrian. The times were better than those which 
we have contemplated in the reigns of the Caesars. After 
the suicide of Nero and the brief reigns of Galba and Otho, 
the Roman world had breathed more freely for a time 
under the rough good humour of Vespasian and the philo- 
sophic mtue of Titus. The reign of Domitian, indeed, who 
succeeded his brother Titus, was scarcely less terrible and 
infamous than that of Caius or of Nero; but that prince, 
shortly before his murder, had dreamt that a golden neck had 
gro\^Ti out of his own, and interpreted the dream to indicate 
that a better race of princes should follow him. The dream 
was fulfilled. Whatever may have been their other faults, 
Nerva, Trajan, iHadrian, were wise and kind-hearted rulers ; 
Antoninus Pius and iNIarcus Aurelius were among the-very gen- 
tlest and noblest sovereigns whom the world has ever seen. 

Hadrian, though an able, indefatigable, and, on the whole, 
beneficial Emperor, was a man whose character was stained 
with serious faults. It is, however, greatly to his honour 
that he recognized in Aurelius, at the early age of six years, 
the germs of those extraordinary' virtues which afterwards 
blessed the empire and elevated the sentiments of mankind. 
" Hadrian's bad and sinful habits left him," says Niebuhr, 
"when he gazed on the sweetness of that innocent child. 
Playing on the boy's paternal name of Verus, he called him 
Verissimns. 'the most true.'" It is interesting to find that 
this trait of character was so early developed in one who 



THE EDUCATIOX OF AN EMPEROR. 239 

thought that ail men "should speak as they think, with an 
accent of heroic verity." 

Toward the end of his long reign, worn out with disease 
and weariness, Hadrian, being childless, had adopted as his 
son L. Ceionius Commodus, a man who had few recom- 
mendations but his personal beauty. Upon his death, which 
took place a year afterwards, Hadrian, assembling the sena- 
tors round his sick bed, adopted and presented to them as 
their future Emperor Arrius Antoninus, better known by the 
surname of Pius, which he won by his gratitude to the mem- 
ory of his predecessor. Had Aurelius been older — he was 
then but seventeen — it is known that Hadrian v/ould have 
chosen hvn^ and not Antoninus, for his heir. The latter, 
indeed, who was then fifty-two years old, was only selected 
on the express condition that he should in turn adopt both 
Marcus AureUus and the son of the deceased Ceionius. 
Thus, at the age of seventeen, Aurehus, who, even from his 
infancy, had been loaded with conspicuous distinctions, saw 
himself the acknowledged heir to the empire of the world. 

We are happily able, mainly from his own writings, to give 
some sketch of the influences and the education which had 
formed him for this exalted station. 

He was brought up in the house of his grandfather, a 
man who had been three times consul. He makes it a mat- 
ter of congratulation, and thankfulness to the gods, that he 
had not been sent to any public school, where he would have 
run the risk of being tainted by that frightful corruption into 
which, for many years, the Roman youth had fallen. He 
expresses a sense of obligation to his great-grandfather for 
having supphed him -with good teachers at home, and for the 
conviction that on such things a man should spend liberaUy. 
There was nothing jealous, barren, or illiberal, in the train- 



240 MARCUS AURELIVS, 

ing he received. He was fend of boxing, wrestling, run- 
ning ; he Avas an admirable player at ball, and he was fond 
of the perilous excitement of hunting the wild boar. Thus, 
his healthy sports, liis serious studies, his moral instruction, 
his pubhc dignities and dutie:, all contributed to form his 
cha?^cter in a beautiful and manly mould. There are, how- 
ever, three lespects in which his education seems especially 
worthy of notice ; — I mean tlie diligence, the gratitude^ and 
the hardiness in which he v>^as encouraged by others, and 
which he practised A\ath all the ardour of generous convic- 
tion. 

1. In the best sense of the word, Aurelius was diligent. 
He alludes more than once in his Meditations to the inesti- 
mable value of time, and to his ardent desire to gain more 
leisure for intellectual pursuits. He flung himself with his 
usual undeviating stedfastness of purpose into every branch 
of study, and though he deliberately abandoned rhetoric, he 
toiled hard at philosophy, at the discipline of arms, at the 
administration of business, and at the difficult study of 
Roman jurisprudence. One of the acquisitions for which 
he expresses gratitude to his tutor Rusticus, is that of read- 
ing carefully, and not being satisfied with the superficial 
understanding of a book. In fact, so strenuous was his 
labour, and so great his abstemiousness, that his health suf- 
fered by the combination of the^two. 

2. His opening remarks show that he remembered all his 
teachers — even the most insignificant — with sincere grati- 
tude. He regarded each one of them as a man from whom 
something could be learnt, and from whom he actually did 
learn that something. Hence the honourable respect — a 
respect as honourable to himself as to them — which he paid 
to Fronto, to Rusticus, to Julius Proculus, and others whom 



THE EDUCATION OE AN EMPEROR. 241 

his noble and concientious gratitude raised to the highest 
dignities of the State. He even thanks the gods that "he 
made haste to place those who brought him up in the sta- 
tion of honour which they seemed to desire, without putting 
them off w^th mere hopes of his doing it some time after, 
because they were then stiU young." He was far the supe- 
rior of these men, not only socially but even morally and 
intellectually; yet from the height of his exalted rank and 
character he delighted to associate with them on the most 
friendly terms, and to treat them, even till his death, with 
affection and honour, to place their likenesses among his 
household gods, and visit their sepulchres with wTeaths and 
victims. 

3. His hardiness and self-denial were perhaps still more 
remarkable. I wish that those boys of our day, who think 
it undigained to travel second-class, who dress in the 
extreme of fashion, wear roses in their buttonholes, and 
spend upon ices and strawberries what would maintain a 
poor man for a year, would learn how ijifiiiitely more noble 
was the abstinence of this young Roman, who though born 
in the midst of splendour and luxury, learnt from the first to 
loathe the petty vice of gluttony, and to despise the unman- 
liness of self-indulgence. Very early in life he joined the 
glorious fellowship of those who esteem it not only a duty 
but a pleasure 

"To scorn delights, and live laborious days," 

and had learnt "endurance of labour, and to want little, 
and to work with his own hands." In his eleventh year he 
became acquainted with Diognetus, who first introduced 



242 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

him to the Stoic philosophy, and in his twelfth year he 
assumed the Stoic dress. This philosophy taught him "to 
prefer a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind 
belongs to the Grecian discipline." It is said that "the 
skin" was a concession to the entreaties of his mother, and 
and that the young philosopher himself would have chosen 
to sleep on the bare boards or on the ground. Yet he 
acted thus without self-assertion and without ostentation. 
His friends found him always cheerful; and his calm fea- 
tures, — in which a dignity and thoughtfulness of spirit con- 
trasted with the bloom and beauty of a pure and honoura- 
ble boyhood. — were never overshadowed with ill-temper or 
with gloom. 

The guardians of Marcus Aurelius had gathered around 
him all the most distinguished literary teachers of the age. 
Never had a prince a greater number of eminent instructors ; 
never were any teachers made happy by a more grateful, a 
more humble, a more blameless, a more truly royal and 
glorious pupil. Long years after his education had ceased, 
during his campaign among the Quadi, he \\Tote a sketch 
of what he owed to them. This sketch forms the first 
book of his Meditations, and is characterised throughout 
by the most unaffected simplicity and modesty. 

The Aleditatio7is of Marcus Aurelius were in fact his pri- 
vate diary, they are a noble soliloquy with his own heart, 
an honest examination of his ov/n conscience; there is not 
the slightest trace of their having been intended for any 
eye but his own. In them he was acting on the principle 
of St. Augustine : "Go up into, the tribunal of thy con- 
science, and set thyself before thyself." He was ever bear- 
ing about^- 



THE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR. 243 

"A silent court of justice in himself, 
Himself the judge and jury, and himself 
The prisoner at the bar." 

And writing amid all the cares and distractions of a war 
which he detested, he averted his eyes from the manifold 
wearinesses which daily vexed his soul, and calmly sat 
down to meditate on all the great qualities which he had 
observed, and all the good lessons that he might have 
learnt from those who had instructed his boyhood, and sur- 
rounded his manly years. 

And what had he learnt ? — learnt heartily to admire, and 
{u'e may say ) learnt to practise also ? A sketch of his first 
book will show us. What he had gained from his immedi- 
ate parents we have seen already, and we will make a brief 
abstract of his other obligations. 

From "his governor" — to which of his teachers this 
name applies we are not sure — he had learnt to avoid 
factions at the races, to work hard, and to avoid Hstening 
to slander; from Diognetus, to despise frivolous supersti- 
tions, and to practise self-denial; from Apollonius, unde\d- 
ating steadiness of purpose, endurance of misfortune, and 
the reception of favours without being humbled by them; 
from Sextus of Chasronea (a grandson of the celebrated 
Plutarch), tolerance of the ignorant, gravity without affec- 
tation, and benevolence of heart ; from Alexander, delicacy 
in correcting others; from Severus, "a disposition to do 
good, and to give to others readily, and to cherish good 
hope, and to believe that I am beloved of my friends;" 
from Maximus, "sweetness and dignity, and to do what 
was set before me without complaining;" from Alexander 
the V\2itoii\c, '■ not frequently to say to any one, nor to write 
in a letter^ that I have no leisure ; nor continually to ex- 



244 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

cuse the neglect of ordinary duties by alleging urgent occu- 
pations." 

To one or two others his obligations were still more 
characteristic and important From Rusticus, for instance, 
an excellent and able man, whose advice for years he was 
accustomed to respect, he had learnt to despise sophistry 
and display, to write with simplicity, to be easily pacified, 
to be accurate, and — an inestimable benefit this, and one 
which tinged the colour of his whole life — to become 
acquainted with the Discoiwses of Epictetus. And from 
his adoptive father, the great Antoninus Pius, he had 
derived advantages still more considerable. In him he 
saw the example of a sovereign and statesman firm, self- 
controlled, modest, faithful, and even tempered; a man 
who despised flattery and hated meanness; who honoured 
the wise and distinguished the meritorious; who was indif- 
ferent to contemptable trifles, and indefatigable in earnest 
business; one, in short, "who had a perfect and invincible 
soul," who, like Socrates, "was able both to abstain from 
and to enjoy those things which many are too weak to 
abstain from and cannot enjoy without excess."* Piety, 
serenity, sweetness, disregard of empty fame, • calmness, 
simplicity, patience, are virtues v/hich he attributes to him 
in another full-length portrait (vi. 30) which he concludes 
with the words. " Imitate all this, that thou mayest have 
as good a conscience when thy last hour comes as he had." 

* My quotations from Marcus Aurelius \vill be made (by permission) 
from the forcible and admirably accurate translation of Mr. Long. In 
thanking Mr. Long. I may be allowed to add that the English reader 
wnll find in his version the best means of becoming acquainted with the 
purest and noblest book of antiquity. 



THE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR. 245 

He concludes these reminiscenses of thankfulness with 
a summary of what he owed to the gods. And for what 
does he thanks the gods? for be'ng wealthy, and noble, 
and an emperor? Nay, for no vulgar or dubious blessings 
such as these, but for the guidance which trained him in 
philosophy, and for the grace which kept him from sin. 
And here it is that his genuine modesty comes out. As 
the excellent divine used to say when he saw a criminal led 
past for execution, "There, but for the grace of God, 
goes John Bradford," so, after thanking the gods for the 
goodness of all his family and relatives, Aurelius says, " Fur- 
ther, I owe it to the gods that I was not hurried into any 
o_Tence against any of them, though I had a disposition 
which, if opportunity had offered^ might have led me to do 
something of this kind; but through their favour there 
never was such a concurrence of circumstances as put me to 
the trial. Further, that I was subjected to a ruler and father 
who took away all pride from me, and taught me that it 
was possible to live in a palace without guards, or embroid- 
ered dresses, or torches, and statues, and such-like show, 
but to live very near to the fashion of a private person, 
without being either mean in thought or remiss in action; 
that after having fallen into amatory passions I was cured; 
that though it was my mother's fate to die young, she spent 
the last years o^ her life with me ; that whenever I wished 
to help any man, I was never told that I had not the 
means of doing it; — that I had abundance of good masters 
for my children : for all these thing require the help of the 
gods and fortune." 

The whole ■ of the Emperor's Meditations deserve the 
profound study of this age. The self-denial which they 
display is a rebuke to our ever-growing luxury ; their gen- 



24^ MARCUS AURELIUS. 

erosity contrasts favourably with the increasing bitterness 
of our cynicism; their contented acquiescence in God's 
will rebukes our incessant restlessness; above all, their 
constant elevation shames that multitude of little vices, 
and little meannesses, which He like a scurf over the con- 
ventionality of modern life. But this earlier chapter has 
also a special value for the young. It offers a picture which 
it would indeed be better for them and for us if they could 
be induced to study. If even under 

"That fierce light that beats upon the throne," 

the life of Marcus Aurehus shows no moral stain, it is still 
more remarkable that the free and beautiful boyhood of 
this Roman prince had early learnt to recognise only the 
excellences of his teachers, their patience and firmness, 
their benevolence and sweetness, their integrity and vir- 
tue. Amid the frightful universality of moral corruption 
he preserved a stainless conscience and a most pure soul; 
he tl*anked God in language which breathes the most crys- 
talline delicacy of sentiment and langage, that he had 
preserved uninjured the flower of his early life, and that 
under the calm influences of his home in the country, and 
the studies of philosophy, he had learnt to value chastity 
as the sacred girdle of youth, to be retained and honoured 
to his latest years. "Surely," says Mr. Carlyle, "a day 
is coming when it will be known again what virtue is in 
purity and continence of life ; how. divine is the blush of 
young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inex- 
orable is the duty laid on every creature in regard to these 
particulars. Well, if such a day never come, then I per- 
ceive much else will never come. Magnanimity and depth 



\ 



THE EDUCATIOX OF AX EMPEROR. 247 

of insight will never come; heroic purity of heart and of 
eye ; noble pious valour to amend us and the age of bronze 
and lacquers, how can they ever come ? The scandalous 
bronze-lacquer age of hungry animalisms, spiritual impo- 
tencies, and mendacities will have to run its course till the 
pit swallow it." 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS. 

On the death of Hadrian in a. d. 138, Antonmus Pius suc- 
ceeded to the throne, and, in accordance with the late 
Emperor's conditions, adopted Marcus AureUus and Lucius 
Commodus. Marcus had been betrothed at the age of 
fifteen to the sister of Lucius Commodus, but the new 
Emperor broke off the engagment, and betrothed him in- 
stead to his daughter Faustina, The marriage, however, 
was not celebrated till seven years afterwards, a. d. 146. 

The long reign of Antoninus Pius is one of those happy- 
periods that have no history. An almost unbroken peace 
reigned at home and abroad. Taxes were lightened, 
calamities relieved, informers discouraged; confiscation 
were rare, plots and executions were almost unknown. 
Throughout the whole extent of his vast domain the people 
hwed and valued their Emperor, and the Emperor's one 
aim was to further, the happiness of his people. He, too, 
like Aurelius, had learnt that what was good for the bee 
was good for the hive. He strove to live as the civil ad- 
ministrator, of an unaggressive and united repubfic ; he dis- 
liked war, did not value the military title of Imperator, and 
never deigned to accept a triumph. 

With this wise and eminent prince, who was as amiable 
in his private relations as he was admirable in the dis- 



HIS LIFE AXD THOUGHTS. 249 

charge of his pubHc duties, Marcus AureHus spent the next 
twenty-three years of his hfe. So close and intimate was 
their union, so completely did they regard each other as 
father and son, that during all that period Aurehus never 
slept more than twice away from the house of Antoninus. 
There was not a shade of jealousy between them; each was 
the friend and adviser of the other, and, so far from reoard- 
ing his destined heir with suspicion, the Emperor gave him 
the designation "C^sar," and heaped upon him all 
the honours of the Roman Commonwealth. It was in vain 
that the whisper of malignant tongues attempted to shake 
this mutual confidence. Antoninus once saw the mother 
of Aurelius in earnest prayer before the statue of Apollo. 
" What do you think she is praying for so intently?" asked 
a wretched mischief-maker oi the name of Valerius Omu- 
lus: "it is that you may die, and her son reign." This 
wicked suggestion might have driven a prince of meaner 
character into violence and disgust, but Antoninus passed 
it over with the silence of contempt. 

It was the main delight of Antoninus to enjoy the quiet 
of his country villa. Unlike Hadrian, who traversed im- 
mense regions of his vast dominion, Antoninus lived entirely 
either at Rome, or in his beautiful villa at Lorium, a little 
seacoast village about twelve miles from the capital. In 
this villa he had been born, and here he died, surrounded 
by the reminiscences of his childhood. In this his real 
home it was his special pleasure to lay aside the pomp and 
burden of his imperial rank. "He did not," says Marcus, 
"take the bath at unseasonable hours; he was not fond of 
building houses, nor curious about what he eat, nor about 
the texture and colour of his clothes, nor about the beauty 
of his slaves." Even the dress he wore was the work of the 



250 ' ^ MARCUS AURELIUS. 

provincial artist in his little native place. So far from check- 
ing the philosophic tastes of his adopted son he fostered 
them, and sent for ApoUonius of Chalcis to be his teacher 
in the doctrines of Stoicism. In one of his notes to Fronto, 
Marcus draws the picture of their simple country occupa- 
tions and- amusements. Hunting, fishing, boxing, -wTest- 
ling, occupied the leisure of the two princes, and they shared 
the rustic festivities of the vintage. " I have dined," he 
writes, " on a little bread. . . . We perspired a great deal, 
shouted a great deal, and left some gleanings of the vintage 
hanging on the trellis work. . . . When I got home I studied 
a little, but not to much advantage I had a long talk v/ith 
my mother, who was lying on her couch." Who knows 
how much Aurelius and how much the world may have 
gained from such conversation as this with a mother from 
whom he had learnt to hate even the thought of evil ? Nor 
will any one despise the simplicity of heart which made him 
mingle with the peasants as an amateur vintager, unless he 
is so tasteless and so morose as to think with scorn of 
Scipio and Lselius as they gathered shells on the seashore, 
or of Henry IV. as he played at horses with his little boys 
on all-fours. The capability of unbending thus, the genuine 
cheerfulness which enters at due times into simple amuse- 
ments, has been found not rarely in the highest and purest 
minds. 

For many years no incident of importance broke the even 
tenor of Aurehus's Ufe. He lived peaceful, happy, prosper- 
ous, and beloved, watching without envy the increasing 
years of his adopted father. But in the year 161, when Marcus 
was now forty years old, iVntoninus Pius, who had reached 
the age of seventy-five, caught a fever at Lorium. Feeling 
that his end was near, he summoned his friends and the 



HIS LIFE AND THOUGHTS. 251 

chief men of Rome to his bedside, and there (without say- 
ing a word about his other adopted son, who is generally 
known by the name of Lucius Verus) solemnly recom- 
mended Marcus to them as his successor ; and then, giving 
to the captain of the guard the watchword of " Equanimity," 
as though his earthly task was over he ordered to be trans- 
ferred to the bedroom of Marcus the little golden statue of 
Fortune, which was kept in the private chamber of the 
Emperors as an omen of pubHc prosperity. 

The very first public act of the new Emperor was one of 
splendid generosity, namely, the admission of his adoptive 
brother Lucius Verus into the fullest participation of im- 
perial honours, the Tribunitian and proconsular powers, 
and the titles Caesar and Augustus. The admission of 
Lucius Verus to a share of the empire was due to the innate 
modesty of Marcus. As he was a devoted student, and 
cared less for manly exercises, in which Verus excelled, he 
thought fhat his adoptive brother would be a better and 
more useful general than himself, and that he could best 
serve the State by retaining the civil administration, and 
entrusting to his brother the management of war. Verus, 
however, as soon as he got away from the immediate influ- 
ence and ennobling society of Marcus, broke loose from all 
decency, and showed himself to be a weak and worthless 
personage, as unfit for war as he was for all the nobler 
duties of peace, and capable of nothing but enormous glut- 
tony and disgraceful self-indulence. Two things only can 
be said in his favour; the one, that, though depraved, he 
was wholly free from cruelty ; and the other, that he had 
the good sense to submit himself entirely to his brother, and 
to treat him with the gratitude and deference which were 
his due. 



252 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

Marcus had a large family by Faustina, and in the first 
year of his reign his wife bore twins, of whom the one who 
survived became the wicked and detested Emperor Com- 
modus. As though the birth of such a child were in itself 
an omen of ruin, a storm of calamity began at once to 
burst over the long tranquil State. An inundation of the 
Tiber flung down houses and streets over a great part of 
Rome, swept away multitudes of cattle, spoiled the har- 
vests, devastated the fields, and caused a distress which 
ended in ^vide-spread famine. Men's minds were terrified 
by earthquakes, by the burning of cities, and by plagues or 
noxious insects. To these miseries, which the Emperors 
did their best to alleviate, was added the horrors of wars 
and rumours of wars. The Partians, under their king Vol- 
ogeses, defeated and all but destroyed a Roman army, and 
devastated with impunity the Roman province of Syria. 
The wild tribes of the Catti burst over Germany with fire 
and sword ; and the news from Britain was full of insurrec- 
tion and tumult. Such were the elements of trouble and 
discord which overshadovv^ed the reign of Marcus Aurelius 
from its very beginning down to its weary close. 

As the Partian war was the most important of the three, 
Verus was sent to quell it, and but for the ability of his 
generals — the greatest of whom was Avidius Cassius — • 
would have ruined irretrievably the fortunes of the Empire. 
These generals, however, vindicated the majesty of the 
Roman name, and Verus returned in triumph, bringing 
back with him from the East the seeds of a terrible pesti- 
lence which devastated the whole Empire and by which, on 
the outbreak of fresh wars, Verus himself was carried off" at 
Aquiicia. 

Worthless as he was, ^Marcus, who in his fifetime had so 



HIS LIFE AND THOUGHTS. 253 

often pardoned and concealed his faults, paid him th 
liighest honours of sepulcre, and interred his ashes in the 
mausoleum of Hadrian, There were not wanting some 
who charged him with the guilt of fratricide, asserting that 
the death of Verus had been hastened by his means ! 

I have only one reason for aUuding to atrocious and con- 
temptible calumnies like these, and that is because — since 
no doubt such whispers reached his ears — they help to ac- 
count for that deep unutterable melancholy which breathes 
through the httle golden book of the Emperor's Meditations. 
We find, for instance, among them this isolated frag- 
ment : — 

" A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn 
character, bestial, childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scur- 
rilous, fraudulent, tyrannical." 

- We know not of whom he was thinking — perhaps of 
Nero, perhaps of Caligula, but undoubtedly also of men 
whom he had seen and known, and whose very existence 
darkened his soul. The same sad spirit breathes also 
through the following passages : — 

" Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, a,nd 
either a name, or not even a name ; but name is sound and 
echo. And the things which are much valued in life are 
empty, and rotten, and trifling, and little dogs biting one 
another., aiid little children quarrelling., laughing^ and then 
straightway weeping. But fidelity., and modesty., ajtd Justice, 
and truth are fie d 

" ' Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.' " 
" Itwould be a man's happiest lot to depart from man- 



254 MARCUS AURELIUS, 

kind without having had a taste of lying, and hypocrisy, 
and luxury, and pride. However to breathe out one's life 
whe7i a vian has had enough of those thitigs is the next best 
voyage, as the saying is." (ix. 2.) 

Enough of this wretched life, and ?nurmziring, a?id apish 
trifles. Why art thou thus disturbed ? What is there new 
in this ? What unsettles thee ? . . . . Towards the gods, 
then, now become at last more simple and better." (ix. 
37.) The thought is Hke that which dominates through the 
Penitential Psalms of David, — that we may take refuge 
from men, their malignity and their meanness, and find rest 
for our souls in God. From men David has 7io hopej 
mockery, treachery, injustice, are all that he expects from 
them, — the bitterness of his enemies, the far-off indifference 
of his friends. Nor does this greatly trouble him, so long 
as he does not wholly lose the light of Code's countenance. 
" I had no place'to flee unto, and no man cared for my 
soul. I cried unto thee, O Lord, and said, Thou art my 
hope, and my portion in the land of the living." "Cast 
me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy 
-Spirit from me. 

But whatever may have been his impulse at times to 
give up in despair all attempt to improve the "little breed" 
of men around him. Marcus had schooled his gentle spirit 
to live continually in far other feelings. Were men con- 
temptible ? It was all the more reason why he should him- 
self be noble. Were men petty, and malignant, and pas- 
sionate and unjust ? In that proportion were they all the 
more marked out for pity and tenderness, and in that pro- 
portion was he bound to the utmost of his ability to show 
himself great, and forgiving, and calm, and true. Thus 
Marcus turns his very bitterest experience to gold, and 



HIS LIFE AND THOUGHTS. 255 

from the vilenesses of others, which depressed his lonely 
Hfe, so far from suffering himself to be embittered as well 
as saddened, he only draws fresh lessons of humanity and 
love. 

He says, for instance, " Begin the morning by saying to 
thyself, I shall meet zvith the busybody, the ungrateful, arro- 
gant, deceitful, e?zvious, unsocial. All these things happen to 
them by reason of their ignora?tce of what is good and evil. 
But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beau- 
tiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him 
that does wrong that is akin to me, . . . and that it par- 
takes of the same portion of the divinity, I can neither be 
injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is 
ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. 
For we are 7nade for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like 
eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To 
act against one another then is contrary to nature ; and it 
is acting against one another to ,be vexed and turn away." 
(ii. I.) Another of his rules, and an eminently wise one, 
was to fix his thoughts as much as possible on the virtues 
of others, rather than on their vices. " When thou wishest 
to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those who live with 
thee — the activity of one, the modesty of another, the lib- 
erality of a third, and some other good quaUty of a fourth." 
What a rebuke to the contemptuous cynicism which we are 
daily tempted to display ! " An infinite, being comes before 
us," says Robertson, "with a whole eternity wrapt up in his 
mind and soul, and we proceed to classify hi7n,put a label 
upon hijn, as we would' upo?i ajar, saying. This is rice, that 
is jelly, a7id this pomatu?n; and then we think we have 
saved ourselves the necessity of taking off the cover, How 
differently our Lord treated the people who came to Him ! 



256 MARCUS A URELIUS. 

.... consequently, at His touch each one gave out his 
pecuHar spark of Hght." 

Here, again, is a singularly pithy, comprehensive, and 
beautiful piece of advice : — 

" Men exist for the sake of one another. Teacn tkeni or 
bear with them.'^ (viii. 59.) 

And again : " The best way of -^yenging thyself is not 
to become like the wrong doer." 

And again, " If any man has done wrong, the harm is his 
own. But perhaps he has not done wrong." (ix. 38.) 

Most remarkable, however, are the nine rules which he 
drew up for himself, as subjects for reflection when any one 
had offended him, viz. — • 

1. That men were made for each other : even the in- 
ferior for the sake of the superior, and these for the sake of 
one another. 

2. The invincible influences that act upon men, and 
mould their opinions and their acts. 

3. That sin is mainly error and ignorance, — an involun- 
tary slavery. 

4. That we are ourselves feeble, and by no means immac- 
ulate ; and that often our very abstinence from faults is 
due more to cowardice and a care for our reputation than 
to any freedom from the disposition to commit them. 

5. That our judgments are apt to be very rash and 
premature. " And in short a man must learn a great deal 
to enable him to pass a correct judgment on another man's 
acts." 

6. When thou art much vexed or grieved, consider that 
man's life is only a moment, and after a short time we are 
all laid out, dead."' 

7. That no wrongful act of another can bring shame on 



HIS LIFE AXn THOUGHTS. 257 

us, and that it is not men's acts which disturb us, but our 
own opinions of them. 

8. That our own anger hurts us more than the acts 
themselves. 

9. That benevolence is invincible, if if be 7iot an affected 
s??iile, nor acting a part. " For what will the most violent 
man do to thoe if thou continuest benevolent to him? 
gently and calmly correcting him, admonishing him when 
he is trying to do thee harm, saying, ^ Mot so, my child : 
zve are cojistituted by nature for somethifig else: I shall ce?-- 
tahily not be injured, but thou art injuring thyself my child.' 
And show him with gentle tact and by general principles 
that this is so, and that even bees do not do as he does, 
nor any gregarious animal. And this you must do simply, 
unreproachfuUy, affectionately; without rancour, and if pos- 
sible when you and he are alone." (xi. 18.) 

^'' Not so, my child; thou art injuring thyself, my child." 
Can all antiquity show anything tenderer than this, or an}'- 
thing more close to the spirit of Christian^ teaching than 
these nine rules ? They were worthy of the men who, un- 
like the Stoics in general, considered gentleness to be a vir- 
tue, and a proof at once of philosophy and of true manhood. 
They are written with that effusion of sadness and benevo- 
lence to which it is difficult to find a parallel. They show 
how completely Marcus had triumphed over all petty mal - 
ignity, and how earnestly he strove to fulfil his own precept 
of always keeping the thoughts so sweet and clear, that ''if 
any one should suddenly ask, ' What hast thou now in thy 
thoughts ?' -with perfect openness thou mightest immedi- 
ately answer, ' This or That.' " In short, to give them 
their highest praise, they would have delighted the great 
Christian Apostle who wrote, — 



258 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

" Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, 
support the weak, be patient towards all men. See that 
none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow 
that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men." 
(i Thess. iv. 14. 15.) 

"Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a 
brother." (2. Thess. iv. 15.) 

'' Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if 
any man have a quarrel against any." (Col. iii. 13.) 

Nay, are' they not even in full accordance with the mind 
and spirit of Him who said, — 

" If thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell him his 
fault between thee and him alone : if he shall hear thee thou 
hast gai7ied thy b?'other.'^ 

In the life of Marcus Aurelius, as in so many lives, we are 
able to trace the great law of compensation. His exalted 
station, during the later years of his life, threw him among 
many who were false and Pharisaical and base ; but his 
youth had been spent under happier conditions, and this 
saved him from falling into the sadness of those whom 
neither man nor woman please. In his earher years it had 
been his lot to see the fairer side of humanity, and the re- 
co'lection of those pure and happy days was like a healing 
tree tlirown into the bitter and turbid waters of his reign. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS ( COUtimced). 

Marcus was now the undisputed lord of the Roman 
world. He was seated on the dizziest and most splendid 
eminence which it was possible for human grandeur to 
obtain. 

But this imperial elevation kindled no glow of pride or 
self-satisfaction in his^meek and chastened nature. He 
regarded himself as being in fact the servant of all. It 
was his duty, like that of the bull in the herd, or the ram 
among the flocks, to confront every peril in his own person, 
to be foremost in all the ha,rdships of war and the most 
deeply immersed in all the toils of peace. The registry of 
the citizens, the suppression of litigation, the elevation of 
pubhc morals, the restraining of consanguineous marriages, 
the care of minors, the retrenchment of pubhc expeases, 
the limitation of gladitorial games and shows, the care of 
roads, the restoration of senatorial privileges, the appoint- 
ment of none but worthy ma.gistrates — even the regulation 
of street traffic — these and numberless other duties so com- 
pletely absorbed his attention that, in spite of indilTerent 
health, they often kept him at severe labour from early 
morning till long after midnight. His position indeed often 
necessitated his presence at games and shows, but on these 

8 



26o MARCUS AURELIUS. 

occasions he occupied himself either in reading, or being 
read to, or in writing notes. He was one of those who 
held that nothing should be done hastily, and that few 
crimes were worse than the waste of time. It is to such 
views and such habits that we owe the compositions of his 
works. His Meditations were written amid the painful self- 
denial and distracting anxieties of his wars with the Quadi 
and the Marcomanni, and he was the author of other works 
v/hich unhappily have perished. Perhaps of all the lost 
treasures of antiquity there are few which we should feel a 
greater wish to recover than the lost autobiography of this 
wisest of Emperors and hoHest of Pagan men. 

As for the external trappings of his rank, — those gor- 
geous adjuncts and pompous circumstances which excite 
the wonder and envy of mankind, — no man could have 
shown himself more indifferent to them. He recognized 
indeed the necessity of maintaining the dignity of his high 
position. " Every moment," he says, " think steadily as a 
Roman and a man to do what thou hast m hand with per- 
fect and simple dignity^ and affection, and freedom, and jus- 
tice " (ii. 5); and again, "Let the Deity which is in thee 
be the guardian of a living being, manly and of ripe age, 
and engaged in matters political, a7td a Ro7nan, aiid a ruler, 
who has taken his post like a man waiting for the signal 
which summons him from life" (iii. 5). But he did not 
think it necessary to accept the fulsome honours and degrad- 
ing adulations which were so dear to many of his predeces- 
sors. He refused the pompous blasphemy of temples and 
altars, saying that for every true ruler the world was a tem- 
ple, and all good men were priests. He declined as much 
as possible ail golden statues and triumphal designations. 
All inevitable luxuries and splendour, such as his pubHc duties 



HIS LIFE AXD THOUGHTS. 261 

rendered indispensable, he regarded as a mere hollow show. 
Marcus Aurelius felt as deeply as our own Shakespeare 
seems to have felt the unsubstantiality, the fleeting evanes- 
cence of all earthly things : he would have delighted in the 
sentiment that, 

'■'■We are suck stuff 
As dreams are made on, and our little life 
Is rounded by a sleep. " 

" When we have meat before us," he says, •' and such 
eatables, we receive the impression that this is the dead 
body of a fish, and this is the dead body of a bird, or of a 
pig ; and^ again., that this Falerian is only a little grape- 
juice., and this purple robe so7ne sheef s wool dyed with the 
blood of a shellfish: such then are these impressions, and 
they reach the things themselves and penetrate them, and 
so we see what kind of things they are. Just in the same 
way .... where there are things which appear most 
worthy of our approbation, we ought to lay them baj-e., and 
look at their worthlessjiess, and strip them of all the words 
by which they are exalted." (vi. 13,) 

" What is worth being valued ? To be received with 
clapping of hands } No, Neither must we value the clap- 
ping of tongues, for the praise which comes from the many 
is a clapping of tongues." (vi. 16.) 

" Asia, Europe, are corners of the universe ; all the sea 
is a drop in the universe ; Athos a little clod of the uni- 
verse ; all the present time is a point in eternity. All 
things are little, changeable, perishable.'' (vi. 36.) 

And to Marcus too, no less than to Shakespeare, it 
seemed that — 



262 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

" All the world's a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players ;" 

for he writes these remarkable words : — 

" The idle business of show ^ plays on the stage, flocks of 
sheep, herds, exercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, 
a bit of bread in fishponds, labour ings of ants, and burden- 
carrying runnings about of frightened little mice, puppets 
pulled by strings — this is what hfe resembles. It is thy 
dnty then in the midst of such things to show good humour, 
and not a proud air ; to understand however that every ma7i 
zs wo7'th just so much as the things are worth about which 
he busies himself 

In fact, the Court was to Marcus a burden ; he tells us 
himself that Philosophy v/as his m.other, Empire only his 
stepmother ; it was only his repose in the one that rendered 
even tolerable to him the burdens of the other. Emperor 
as he was, he thanked the gods for having enabled him to 
enter into the souls of a Thrasea, an Helvidius, a Cato, a 
Brutus. Above all, he seems to have had a horror of ever 
becoming like some of his predecessors; he writes : — 

" Take care that thou art not made into a Csesar;* take 
care thou art not dyed with this dye. Keep thyself then 
simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation, a friend 
of justice, a worshipper of the gods, kind, affectionate, 
strenuous in all proper acts. Reverence the gods and help 
men. Short is Hfe. There is only one fruit of this terre?ie 
life; a pious dispositio7i and social acts y (iv. 19,) 

It is the same conclusion as that which sorrow forced 

* Marcus here mvents what M. Martha justly calls "an admirable 
barbarism" to express his disgust towards such men — opa j.ir/ aTtvxai^ 
daoGoQr/'^ — "take care not to be Ccesariscd.'''' 



ms LIFE AND THOUGHTS. 263 

from another weary and less admirable king: "Let us hear 
the conclusion of the whole matter : Fear God, and keep 
His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man." 

But it is time for us to continue the meagre record of the 
life of Marcus, so far as the bare and gossiping compila- 
tions of Dion Cassius,* and CapitoHnus, and the scattered 
allusions of other writers can enable us to do so. 

It must have been with a heavy heart that he set out 
once more for Germany to face the dangerous rising of the 
Quadi and Marcomanni. To obtain soldiers sufficient to 
fill up the vacancies in his army which had been decim.ated 
by the plague, he was forced to enrol slaves ; and to obtain 
money he had to sell the ornaments of the palace, and even 
some of the' Empress's jewels. Immediately befoie he 
started his heart was wrung by the death of his little boy, 
the twin-brother of Comm6dus, whose beautiful features are 
still preserved for us on coins. Early in the war, as he was 
trying the depth of a ford, he was assailed by the enemy 
with a sudden storm of missiles, and was only saved from 
imminent death by being sheltered beneath the shields of 
his soldiers. One battle was fought on the ice of the win- 
try Danube. But by far the most celebrated event of the 
war took place in a great victory over the Quadi which he 
won in a.d. 174, and which was attributed by the Chris- 
tians to what is known as the " Miracle of the Thundering 
Legion." 

Divested of all extraneous additions, the fact v/hich oc- 
curred, — as established by the evidence of medals, and by 
one of the bassi-relievi on the " Column of Antonine," — ap- 
pears to have been as follows. Marcus Aurelius and his 

* As epiuOrais:ii by Xiphilinus. 



264 ' MARCUS AURELIUS. 

army had been entangled in a mountain deli'e, into \vhich 
they had too hastily pursued a sham rptreat of the barbarian 
archers. In this defile, unable either to fight or to fly, pent 
in by the enemy, burned up with the scorching heat and 
tormented by thirst, they lost all hope, burst into wailing 
and groans, and yielded to a despair from which not even 
the strenuous efforts of Marcus could arouse them. At the 
most critical moment of their danger and misery the clouds 
began to gather, and heavy shows of rain descended, which 
the soldiers caught in their shields and helmets to quench 
their own thirst and that of their horses. While they were 
thus engaged the enemy attacked them ; but the rain was 
mingled with hail, and fell with blinding fury in the faces of 
the barbarians. The storm was also accompanied with 
thunder and lightning, which seems to have damaged the 
enemy, and filled them with terror, while no casualty oc- 
cured in the Roman ranks. The Romans accordingly re- 
garded this as a Divine interposition, and achieved a most 
decisive victory, which proved to be the practical conclu- 
sion of a hazardous and important war. 

The Christians regarded the event not zs providential but 
as miraadous, and attributed it to the prayers of their 
brethren in a legion which, from this circumstance, received 
the name of the ^' Thundering Legion." It is however now 
known that one of the legions, distinguished by a flash of 
lightning which was represented on their shields, had been 
known by this name since the time of Augustus ; and the 
Pagans themselves attributed the assistance which they had 
received sometimes to a prayer of the pious Emperor and 
sometimes to the incantations of an Egyptian sorcerer 
named Arnuphis. 

One of the Fathers, the passionate and eloquent Tertul- 



HIS LIFE AND THOUGHTS. 265 

lian, attributes to this deliverance an interposition of tiie 
Emperor in favour of the Christians, and appeals to a letter 
of his to the Senate in which he acknowledged how effectual 
had been the aid. he had received from Christian prayers, 
and forbade any one hereafter to molest the followers of the 
new religion, lest they should use against him the weapon 
of supplication which had been so powerful in his favour. 
This letter is preserved at the end of the Apology of Justin 
Martyr, and it adds that, not only are no Christians to be 
injured or persecuted, but that any one who informed 
against them is to be burned alive ! We see at once that 
this letter is one of those impudent and transparent for- 
geries in which the literature of the first five centuries un- 
happily abounds. What was the real relation of Marcus to 
the Christians we shall consider hereafter. 

To the gentle heart of Marcus, all war, even when accom- 
panied with victories, was .eminently distasteful ; and in such 
painful and ungenial occupations no small part of his life was 
passed. \\Tiat he thought of war and of its successes is 
graphically set forth in the following remark : — 

"A spider is proud when it has caught a fly, and another 
when he has caught a poor hare, and another when he has 
taken a little fish in a net, and another when he has taken 
wild boars or bears, and another when he has taken Sanna- 
tians. Are not these robbers, T^^hen thou examine^t their 
principles ?" He here condemns his own involuntary ac- 
tions ; but it was his unliappy destiny not to have trodden 
out the embers of this war before he was burdened with 
another far more painful and formidable. 

This was the revolt of Avidius Cassius, a general of the 
old blunt Roman type, whom, in spite of some ominous 
warnings, Marcus both loved and trusted. The ingratitude 



266 MARCUS A URELIUS. 

displayed by such a man caused Marcus the deepest anguish ; 
but he was saved from all dangerous consequences by the 
\vide-spread affection which he had inspired by his \drtuous 
reign. 

The very soldiers of the rebellious general fell away from 
him ; and, after he had been a nominal Emperor for only- 
three months and six days, he was assassinated by some of 
his own officers. His head was sent to Marcns, who re- 
ceived it ^^th sorrow, and did not hold out to the murder- 
ers the shghtest encouragement. The joy of success was 
swallowed up in regret that his enemy had not lived to al- 
low him the luxmy of a genuine forgiveness. Hfe begged 
the Senate to pardon all the family of Cassius, and to suffer 
this single life to be the only one forfeited in consequence 
of civil war. The Fathers received these proofs of clemency 
"with the rapture v\diich they desen'ed, and the Senate-house 
resounded -udth acclamations and blessings. 

Never had a formidable conspiracy been more quietly 
and effectually crushed. Marcus travelled through the prov- 
inces which had favoured the cause of Avidius Cassius, 
and treated them all with the most complete and indulgent 
forbearance. When he arrived in Syiia, the correspond- 
ence of Cassius was brought to him, and, with a glorious 
magnanimity of which history affords but fevr examples, he 
consigned it all to the flames um-ead. 

During this journey of pacification, he lost his wife Faus- 
tina, w^ho died suddenly in one of the valleys of Mount 
Taurus. History, or the collection of anecdotes which at 
this period often passes as history, has assigned to Faustina 
a character of the darkest infany, and it has even been 
made a charge against Aurelius that he overlooked or con- 
doned her offences. As far as Faustina is concerned, we 



HIS LIFE AND THOUGHTS. 267 

have not much to say, although there is strong reason to 
beHeve that many of the stories told of her are scandalously 
exaggerated, if not absolutely false. Certain it is, that 
most of the imputations upon her memory rest on the 
malignant anecdotes recorded by Dion, who dearly loved 
every piece of scandal which degraded human nature. The 
specific charge brought against her of having tempted Cas- 
sius from his allegiance is wholly unsupported, even if it be 
not absolutely incompatible with what we find in her own 
extnat letters ; and, finally, Marcus himself not only loved 
her tenderly, as the kind mother of his eleven children, but 
in his Meditations actually thanks the gods for having 
granted him '' such a wife, so obedient so affectionate, and 
so simple." No doubt Faustina was unworthy of her 
husband j but surely it is the glory and not the shame of a 
noble nature to be averse from jealousy and suspicion, and 
to trust to others more deeply than they deserve. 

So blameless was the conduct of Marcus Aurelius that 
neither the malignity of contemporaries nor the sprit of 
posthumous scandal has succeeded in discovering any flaw 
in the extreme integrity of his life and principles. But 
meanness will not be baulked of its victims. The hatred of 
all excellence which made Caligula try to put down the 
memory of great men rages, though less openly, in the 
minds of many. They dehght to degrade human life into 
that dull and barren plain " in which every molehill is a 
mountain, and every thistle a forest-tree." Great men are 
as small in their eyes as they are said to be in the eyes of 
their valets ; and there are multitudes who, if they find 

" Some stain or blemish in a name of note, 
Not grieving that their greatest are so small. 
Inflate themselves with some insane delight, 



268 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

And judge all nature from her feet of clay, 
Without the will to lift their eyes, and see 
Her godlike head crown' d with spiritual fire, 
And touching other worlds." 

This I suppose is the reason why, failing to drag down 
Marcus Aurelius from his moral elevation, some have 
attempted to assail his reputation because of the supposed 
vileness of Faustina and the actual depravity of Commodus. 
Of Faustina I have spoken already. Respecting Commo- 
dus, 1 think it sufficient to ask with Solomon: "Who 
knoweth whether his son shall be a wise man or a fool?" 
Commodus was but nineteen when his father died ; for the 
first three years of his reign he ruled respectably and 
acceptably. Marcus Aurelius had left no effort untried to 
have him trained aright by the first teachers and the wisest 
men whom the age produced ; and Flerodian distinctly tells 
us that he had lived virtuously up to the time of his father's 
death. Setting aside natural affection altogether, and even 
assuming (as I should conjecture from one or two 
passages of his Meditations) that Marcus had mis- 
givings about his son, would it have been easy, would it 
have been even possible, to set aside on general grounds a 
son who had attained to years of maturity ? However this 
may be, if there are any who think it worth while to cen- 
sure Marcus because, after all, Commodus turned out to be 
but "a warped slip of wilderness," their censure is hardly 
sufficiently discriminating to deserve the trouble of refuta- 
tion. 

"But Marcus AureHus cruelly persecuted the Christians." 
Let us briefly consider this charge. That persecutions 
took place in his reign is an undeniable fact, and is suffi- 
ciently evidenced by the Apologies of Justin Martyr, of 



HIS LIFE AND THOUGHTS. 269 

Melito Bishop of Sardis, of Athenagoras, and of ApoUi- 
narius, as well as by the Letter of the Church of Smyrna 
describing the martyrdom of Polycarp, and that of the 
Churches of Lyons and Vienne to their brethren in Asia 
Minor. It is fair, however, to mention that there is some 
documentary evidence on the other side ; Lactantius clearly 
asserts that under the reigns of those excellent princes who , 
succeeded Domitian the Church suffered no violence ffom 
her enemies, and " spread her hands towards the East and 
the West:" Tertullian, writing but twenty years after the 
death of Marcus, d'stinctly says ( and Eusebius quotes the 
assertion), that there were letters of the Emperor, in which 
he not only attributed his delivery among the Quadi to the 
prayers of Christian soldiers in the Thundering Legion," 
but ordered any who informed against the Christians to be 
most severely punished; and at the end of the works of Jus- 
tin Martyr is found a letter of similar purport, which is 
asserted to have been addressed by Marcus to the Senate 
of Rome. We may set aside these peremptory testimonies, 
we may believe that TertuUian and Eusebius were mis- 
taken, and that the documents to which they referred were 
spurious ; but this should make us also less certain about 
the prominent participation of the Emperor in these perse- 
cutions. My own beUef is ( and it is a belief which could 
be supported by many critical arguments), that his share in 
causing them was almost infinitesimal. If those who love 
his memory reject the evidence of Fathers in his favour, 
they may be at least permitted to withold assent from some 
of the assertions in virtue of which he is condemned. 

Marcus in his Meditatiojis alludes to the Christians once 
only, and then it is to make a passing complaint of the 
indifference to death, which appeared to him, as it appeared 



270 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

to Epictetus, to arise, not from any noble principles, but 
from mere obstinacy and perversity. That he shared the 
profound dislike with which Christians were regarded is very 
probable. That he was a cold-blooded and virulent perse- 
cutor is utterly unlike his whole character, essentially at 
variance with his habitual clemency, alien to the spirit 
which made him interfere in every possible instance to mit- 
igate the severity of legal punishments, and may in short be 
regarded as an assertion v\^hich is altogether false. Who 
will believe that a man who during his reign built and ded- 
icated but one single temple, and that a Temple to Benefi- 
cence; that a man who so far from showing any jealousy 
respecting foreign religions allowed honour to be paid to 
them all; that a man whoze writings breathe on every page 
the inmost spirit of philanthropy and tenderness, went out 
of his way to join in a persecution of the most innocent, 
the most courageous, and the most inoffensive of his sub- 
jects? 

The true state of the case seems to have been this. The 
deep calamities in which, daring the whole reign of Marcus 
the Empire was involved, caused widespread distress, and 
roused into peculiar fury the feelings of the provincials 
against men whose atheism (for such they considered it to 
be) had kindled the anger of the gods. This fury often 
broke out into paroxisms of popular excitement, which 
none but the firmest-minded governers were able to mod- 
erate or to repress. Marcus, when appealed to, simply let 
the existing law take its usual course. That law was as old 
as the time of Trajan. The young Pliny, Governor of 
Bithynia, had written to ask Trajan how he was to deal with 
the Christians, whose blamelessness of life he fully admitted, 
but whose doctrines, he said, had emptied the temples of 



HIS LIFE AXD THOUGHTS. 271 

the gods, and exasperated their worshippers. Trajan in 
reply had ordered that the Christians should not be sought 
for, but that, if they were brought before the governor, and 
proved to be contumacious in refusing to adjure their reli- 
gion, they were then to be put to death. Hadrian and Anto- 
Pius had continued "the same policy, and Marcus Aurilius 
ninus saw no reason to alter it. But this law, which in quiet 
times might become a mere dead letter, might at more troubled 
periods be converted into a dangerous engine of persecution, 
as it was in the case of the venerable Polycarp, and in the 
unfortunate Churches of Lyons and Vienne. The Pagans 
believed that the reason why their gods were smiUng in 
secret, — 

' ' Looking over wasted lands, 
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deepg and fiery 



Clanging fights, and flaming to\\Tis, and sinking ships, and praying 
hands, — 

was the unbeUef and impiety of these hated Galileans, 
causes of offence which could only be expiated by the death 
of the guilty. "Their enemies," says TertuUian, ''call 
aloud for the blood of the innocent, alleging this vain pre-^ 
text for their hatred, that they believe the Christians to be 
the cause of every public misfortune. If the Tiber has 
overflowed its banks, or the Nile has not overflowed, if 
heaven has refused its rain, if famine or the plague has 
spread its ravages, the cry is immediate, ' The Christians to 
the lions.'" In the first three, centuries the cry of "No 
Christianity" became at times as brutal, as violent, and as 
unreasoning as the cry of "No Popery" has often been in 
modern days. It was infinitely less disgraceful to Marcus 



272 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

to lend his ear to the one than it has been to some eminent 
modern statesmen to be carried away by the insensate fury 
of the other. 

To what extent is Marcus AureHus to be condemned for 
the martyrdoms which took place in his reign? Not, I 
think, heavily or indiscriminately, or with vehement sweep- 
ing censure. Common justice surely demands that we should 
not confuse the present with the past, or pass judgment on 
the conduct of the Emperor as though he were living in the 
nineteenth century, or as though he had been acting in full 
cognisance of the Gospels and the stories of the Saints. 
Wise and good men before him had, in their haughty igno- 
rance, spoken of Christianity with execration and contempt. 
The philosophers who surrounded his throne treated it wth 
jealousy and aversion. The body of the nation firmly be- 
lieved the current rumours which charged its votaries with 
horrible midnight assembhes, rendered infamous by Thyes- 
tian banquets and the atrocities of nameless superstitions. 
These foul calumnies — these hideous charges of cannibalism 
and incest, — were supported by the reiterated perjury of 
slaves under torture, which in that age, as well as long 
afterwards, was preposterously regarded as a sure criterion 
of truth. 

Christianity in that day was confounded with a multitude 
of debased and foreign superstitions ; and the Emperor in 
his judicial capacity, if he ever encountered Christians at 
all, was far more likely to encounter those who were un- 
worthy of the name, than to become acquinted with the 
meek, unworldly, retiring virtues of the calmest, the holiest, 
and the best. When we have given their due weight to 
considerations such as these we shall be ready to pardon 
Marcus Aurehus for having, in this matter, acted ignorantly, 



HIS LIFE AND THOUGHTS. 273 

and to admit that in persecuting Christianity he may most 
honestly have thought that he was doing God service. The 
very sincerity of his beUef, the conscientiousness of his rule, 
the intensity of his philantlirophy, the grandeur of his own 
philosophical tenets, all conspired to make him a worse 
enemy of the Church than a brutal Commodus or a disgust- 
ing Heliog^balus. And yet that there was not in him the 
least /r^^;m/>' to persecute; that these persecutions were 
for the most part spontaneous and accidental; that they were 
in no measure due to his direct instigation, or in special 
accordance with his desire, is clear from the fact that the 
m.artyTdoms took place in Gaul and Asia Minor, not in 
Roine. There must have been hundreds of Christians in 
Rome, and under the very eye of the Emperor; nay, 
there were even multitudes of Christians in his own army ; 
yet we never hear of his having molested any of them. 
Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in addressin'g the Emperor, ex- 
presses a doubt as to whether he w^s really aware of the 
manner in vrhich his Christian subjects were treated. Jus- 
tin Martyr, in his Apology^ addresses him in terms of per- 
fect confidence and deep respect. In short he was in this 
matter " blameless, but unfortunate." It is painful to 
think that the venerable Polycarp, and the thoughtful 
Justin may have forfeited their hves for their principles, 
not only in the reign of so good a man, but even by virtue 
of his authority ; but we must be very uncharitable or very 
unimaginative if we cannot readily beHeve that, though 
they had received the crown of martyrdom from his hands, 
the redeemed spirits of those great martyrs would have 
been the first to welcome this holiest of the heathen into the 
presence of a Saviour whose Church he persecuted, but to 
whose indwelling Spirit his virtues were due, whom igno- 



274 MARCUS A UR ELI US. 

rantly and unconsciously he worshipped, and whom had he 
ever heard of Him and kno-wm Him, he would have loved 
in his heart and glorified by. the consistency of his noble 
and stainless life. 

The persecution of the Churches in Lyons and Vienne 
happened in a.d. 177. Shortly after this period fresh wars 
recalled the Emperor to the North. It is said that, in 
despair of ever seeing him again, the chief men of Rom.e 
entreated him to address them his farewell admonitions, 
and that for three days he discoursed to them on philo- 
sophical questions. When he arrived at the seat of war, 
victory again crowned his arms. But Marcus was now, 
getting old, and he was worn out with the toils, trials, and 
travels of his long and weary life. He sunk under mental 
anxieties and bodily fatigues, and after a brief illness died 
in Pannonia, either at Vienna or Sirmium, on March 17, 
A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year of his age and the twentieth 
of his reign. 

Death to him was no calamity. He was sadly aware that 
"there is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by 
him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is 
going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and wise 
man, wAW there not be at last some one to say of him, 'Let 
us at last breathe freely, being relieved from this school- 
master. It is true that he was harsh to none of us, but I 
perceive that he tacitly condemns us.' . . . Thou wilt con- 
sider this when thou art dying, and wilt depart more con- 
tentedly by reflecting thus : ' I am going 2?Nd.j from a life in 
which even rny associates^ on behalf of whom I have striven^ 
a?id cared, arid prayed so much, themselves wish me to de- 
part, hoping perchance to get some little advantage by it.' 
\Vhy then should a rnan cling to a longer stay here ? Do 



HIS LIFE AND THOUGHTS. 275 

not, ho7vever^ for this reason go away less kindly disposed to 
t/iem, but preserving thy own character^ and continuing 
friendly, a7id benevolent^ and ki?id" And dreading death 
far less than he dreaded any departure from the laws of 
virtue, he exclaims, " Come quickly, O Death, for fear that 
at last I should forget myself." This utterance has been 
well compared t'o the language which Bossuet put into the 
mouth of a Christian soul : — " O Death; thou dost not 
trouble my designs, thou accompnshest them. Haste, then, 
O favourable Death ! . . . . JVimc Diniittisr 

A nobler, a gentler, a purer, a sweeter soul, — a soul less 
elated by prosperity, or more constant in adversity — a soul 
more fitted by virtue, and chastity, and self-denial to enter 
into the eternal peace, never passed into the presence of its 
Heavenly Father. We are not surprised that all, whose 
means permitted it, possessed themselves of his statues, and 
that they were to be seen for years afterwards among the 
household gods of heathen famihes, who felt themselves 
more hopeful and more happy from the glorious sense of 
possibility which was inspired by the memory of one who, 
in the midst of difficulties, and breathing an atmosphere 
heavy with corruption, yet showed himself so wise, so great, 
so good a man. 

- O frsiined. for nobler times and calmer hearts ! 
O studious thinker, eloquent for truth ! 
Philosopher, despising wealth and death, 
But patient, childlike, full of life and love I 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE " MEDITATIONS OF MARCUS AURELIUS. 

Emperor as he was, Marcus Aurelius found himself in a 
hollow and troublous world ; but he did not give himself 
up to idle regret or querulous lamentations. If these sor- 
rows and jDerturbations came from the gods, he kissed the 
hand that smote him ; " he deHvered up his broken sword 
to Fate the conqueror with a humble and a manly heart." 
In any case he had duties to do, and he set himself to per- 
form them with a quiet heroism — zealously, conscientiously, 
even cheerfully. 

' The principles of the Emperor are not reducible to the 
hard and definite lines of a philosophic system. But the 
great laws which guided his actions and moulded his views 
of life were few and simple, and in his book of Meditations, 
which is merely his private diary written to reheve his mind 
amid all the trials of war and government, he recurs to them 
again and again. " Plays, war, astonishment, torpor, 
slavery," he says to himself, "will wipe out those holy prin- 
ciples of thine ;" and this is why he committed those prin- 
ciples to writing. Some of these I have already adduced, 
and others I proceed to quote, availing myself, as before, 
of the beautiful and scholar-hke translation of Mr. George 
Long. 



HIS '^meditations:' 277 

All pain, and misfortune, and ugliness seemed to the Em- 
peror to be most wisely regarded under a threefold aspect, 
namely, if considered in reference to the gods, as being due 
to laws beyond their control ; if considered with reference 
to the nature of things, as being subservient and necessary ; 
and if considered with reference to ourselves, as being de- 
pendent on the amount of indifference and fortitude with 
which we endure them. 

The following passages will elucidate these points of 
view : — 

" The intelligence of the Universe is social. Accordingly 
it has made the inferior things for the sake of the superior, 
and it has fitted the superior to one another." (v. 30.) 

" Things do not touch the soul, for they are eternal, and 
remain immovable ; but our perturbations come only from 
the opinion which is within. . . . The Universe is T7-a/isfor- 
mation ; life is opinionr (iv. 3.) 

"To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter, and to those 
bitten by mad dogs water causes fear ; and to little children 
the ball is a fine thing. Why then am I angry ? Dost thou 
think that a false opinion has less power than the bile in the 
jaundiced, or the poison in him who is bitten by a mad 
dog?" (vi. 52.) 

" How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impres- 
sion which is troublesome and unsuitable, and immediately 
to be at tranquillity." (v. 2.) 

The passages in which Marcus speaks of evil as a relative 
thing, — as being good in the making, — the unripe and bitter 
bud of that which shall be hereafter a beautiful flower, — 
although not expressed with perfect clearness, yet indicate 
his behef that our view of evil things rises in great measure 



278 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

from our inability to perceive the great whole of which they 
are but subservient parts. 

" All things," he says, " come from that universal ruhng 
power, either directly or by way of consequence. And ac- 
cordingly the lioiis gaping jaws, and that which is poisonous, 
and every hurtful thing, as a thorn, as mud, are after-pro- 
ducts of the grand and beautiful. Do not therefore imagine 
that they are of another kind from that which thou dost 
venerate, but form a just opinion of the source of all." 

In another curious passage he says that all things which 
are natural and congruent with the causes which produce 
them have a certain beauty and attractiveness of their own ; 
for instance, the splittings and corrugations on the surface 
of bread when it has been baked. " And again, figs when 
they are quite ripe gape open ; and in the ripe olives the 
very circumstances of their being near to rottenness adds a 
peculiar beauty to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending 
down, and the lioii s eyebrows, and the foam which flows 
from the mouth of wild boars, and many other things — 
though they are far from being beautiful, if a man should 
examine them severally — still, because they are consequent 
upon the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn 
them, and they please the mind; so that if a man should 
have a feeling and deeper insight about the things found in 
the universe there is hardly <?;Z(? of those luhich follow by way 
of consequence which will not seem to him to be in a manner 
disposed so as to give pleasure." (iv. 2.) 

This congruity to nature — the following of nature, and 
obedience to all her laws — is the key-formula to the doc- 
trines of the Roman Stoics. 

" Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in 
itself, and terminates in itself, not having praise as part of 



HIS ''MEDITATIOXS.'' 279 

itself. Neither worse, then, nor better is a thing made by 
being praised . ... Is such a thing as an eme^^ald made 
worse than it was, if it is not praised? or gold, ivory., pur- 
ple, a lyre., a little knife., a flower, a shrub T' (iv. 20.) 

" Everything harmonizes mth me which is harmonious to 
thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late, 
which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me 
which thy seasons bring, O Nature ! from thee are all things, 
in thee are all things, to thee all things return. The post 
says. Dear city of Cccrops; and wilt not thou say, Dear 
city cf GodV (iv. 23.) 

" Willingly give thyself up to fate, aUowing her to spin 
thy thread into whatever thing she pleases." (iv. 34.) 

And here, in a very small matter — getting out of bed in 
a morning — is one practical appUcation of the formula : — 

" In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let these 
thoughts be present — ' I am rising to the work of a human 
being. Why, the?i, am I dissatisfied if I a?n going to do the 
things for which I exist, and for which I was brought into 
the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bed- 
clothes and keep my self 'warm?' 'But this is more pleas- 
ant.' Dost thou exist, then, to take thy pleasure, and not for 
action or exertion ? Dost thou not see the httle plants, the 
little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bee?, working to- 
gether to put in order their several parts of the universe ? 
And art thou unwilling to do the work of a human being, 
and dost thou not make haste to do that which is accord- 
ing to thy nature?" (v. i.) [" Go to the ant, thou sluggard; 
consider her ways, and be wise !"] 

The same principle, that Nature has assigned to us our 
proper place — that a task has been given us to perform, 
and that our only care should be to perform it aright, for 



zSo MARCUS A UR ELI US. 

the blessing of the great Whole of which we are but insig- 
nificant parts — dominates through the admirable precepts 
which the Emperor lays down for the regulation of our con- 
duct towards others. Some men, he says, do benefits to 
others only because they expect a return ; some men even, 
if they do not demand any return, are not foj^getfii I that they 
have rendered a benefit ; but others do not even know 
wdiat they have done, but are like a vine which has p7'0- 
duced grapes, aitd sjeks for nothing more after it has p7'o- 
duced its proper fruit. So we ought to do good to others 
as simple and as naturally as a horse runs, or a bee makes 
honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season, without 
thinking of the grapes which it has borne. And in another 
passage, " What more dost thou want when thou hast done 
a service to another ? Art thou not content to have done 
an act conformable to thy nature, and must thou seek to be 
paid for it, just as if the eye demanded a reward for seeing, 
or the feet for walking ?" 

" Judge every word and deed which is according to 
nature to be fit for thee, and be not diverted by the blame 
which follows .... but if a thing is good to be done or 
, said, do not consider it unworthy of thee." (v. 3.) 

Sometimes, indeed, Marcus AureHus wavers. The evils 
of life overpower him. " Such as bathing appears to thee," 
he says, " oil, sweat, dirt, filthy water, all things disgusting 
— so is every part of life and everything'" (viii. 24) ; and 
again: — "Of human life the time is a point, and the sub- 
stance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the com- 
position of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the 
soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing 
devoid of judgment." But more often he retains his per- 
fect tranquillity, and says, "Either thou livest here, and 



HIS ''MEDITATIOXS:' 281 

hast already accustomed thyself to it, or thou art going 
away, and this was thine own will ; or thou art dying, and 
hast discharged thy duty. But besides these things there is 
nothing. Be of good cheer^ then^ (x. 22.) "Take me, and 
cast me where thou mlt, for then I shall keep my divine 
part tranquil, that is, content, if it can feel and act conform- 
ably to its proper constitution." (viii. 45.) 

There is something delightful in the fact that even in the 
Stoic philosophy there was some comfort to keep men from 
despair. To a holy and scrupulous conscience like that of 
Marcus, there would have been an inestimable preciousness 
in the Christian doctrine of the " forgiveness of the sins.'" Of 
that divine mercy — of that sin-uncreating power — the 
ancient world knew nothing ; but in Marcus we find some 
dim and faint adumbration of the doctrine, expressed in a 
manner which might at least breathe calm into the spirit of 
the philosopher, though it could never reach the hearts of 
the suffering multitude. For "suppose," he says, "that 
thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity, — for thou 
wast made by nature a part, but now hast cut thyself off — 
yet here is the beautiful provision that it is i7i thy power again 
to unite thyself God has allowed this to no other part — 
after it has been separated and cut asunder, to come to- 
gether again. But consider the goodness with which He has 
privileged vian ; for He has put it in his power ^ when he has 
bee7i separated^ to return and to be reunited^ afid to resume 
his place!' And elsewhere he says, " If you cannot main- 
tain a true and magnanimous character, go courageously 
into some corner where you can maintain them ; or if even 
there you fail, depart at once from life, not with passion, 
but with modest and simple freedom — which will be to have 
done at least one laudable act." Sad that even to Marcus 



282 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

Aurelius death should have seemed the only refuge from the 
despair of ultimate failure in the struggle to be wise and 
good! 

Marcus valued temperance and self-denial as being the 
best means of keeping his heart strong and pure; but we 
are glad to learn he did 7iot value the rigours of asceticism. 
Life brought vfith it enough, and more than enough, of an- 
tagonism to brace his nerves; enough, and more than 
enough, of the rough wind of adversity in his face to make 
it unnecessary to add more by his own actions. "It is not 
fit," he says, "that I should give myself pain, for I have 
never intentionally given pain even to another." (vlii. 42.) 

It was a commonplace of ancient philosophy that the life 
of the wise man should be a contemplation of, and a pre- 
paration for, death. It certainly was so with Marcus Aure- 
lius. The thoughts of the nothingness of man, and of that 
great sea of oblivion which shall hereafter swallow up all 
that he is and does, are ever present to his mind ; they are 
thoughts to which he recurs more constantly than any other, 
and from which he always draws the same moral lesson. 

" Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this 
very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly. 
. . . Death certainly, and life, honour and dishonour, pain 
and pleasure, all these things happen equally to good men 
and bad, being things which make us neither better nor 
v.'^orse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil." (ii. 11.) 

Elsewhere he says that Hippocrates cured diseases and 
died ; and the Chaldaeans foretold the future and died ; and 
Alexander, and Pompey, and Caesar killed thousands, and 
then died ; and lice destroyed Democritus, and other lice 
killed Socrates ; and Augustus, and his wife, and daughter, 
and all his descendants, and all his ancestors, are dead ; and 



HIS ''MEDITATIONS:' 283 

Vespasian and all his Court, and all who in his day feasted, 
and married, and were sick and chaffered, and fought, and 
flattered, and plotted, and grumbled, and wished other 
people to die, and pined to become kings or consuls, are 
dead ; and all the idle people who are doing the same things 
now are doomed to die; and all human things are smoke, 
and nothing at all ; and it is not for us, but for the gods, to 
settle whether we play the play out, or only a part of it. 
^'' There are many grains of fraukiucejise on the same altar; 
07ie falls before^ another falls after; but it 7Jiakes no differenced 
And the moral of all these thoughts is, "Death hangs 
over thee while thou livest : while it is in thy power be 
good." (iv. 17.) "Thou hast embarked, thou hast made 
the voyage, thou hast come to shore ; get out. If, indeed, 
to another life there is no want of gods, not even there. 
But if to a state without sensation, thou wait cease to be 
held by pains and pleasures." (iii. 3.) 

Nor was Marcus at all comforted under present annoy- 
ances by the thought of posthumous fame. " How ephem- 
eral and worthless human -things are," he says, "and what 
was yesterday a little mucus, to-morrow will be a mummy 
or ashes." " Many who are novv^ praising thee, will very 
soon blame thee, and neither a posthumous name is of any 
value, nor reputation, nor anything else." What has be- 
come of all great and famous men, and all they desired, 
and all they loved? They are '^ sm.oke, and ash, and a tale, 
or not even a tale." After all their ra^-es and envyings, 
men are stretched out quiet and dead at last. Soon thou 
wilt have forgotten all, and soon all vf ill have forgotten thee. 
But here, again, after such thoughts, the same moral is al- 
ways introduced again : — " Pass then through the little space 
of time conformably to nature, and end the journey in con- 



284 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

tent, just as an olive falls off luheti it is ripe, blessing nature 
who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew." 
" One thing only troubles me, lest I should do something 
which the constitution of man does not allow, or in the way 
which it does not allow, or what it does not allow now." 

To quote the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius is to me a fas- 
cinating task. But I have already let him speak so largely 
for himself that by this time the reader will have some con- 
ception of his leading motives. It only remains to adduce 
a few more of the Y%-eighty and golden sentences in which 
he lays down his rule of Kfe. 

" To say all in a word, everything which belongs to the 
body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream 
and vapour ; and life is a warfare, and a stranger's sojourn, 
and after fame is oblivion. What, then, is that which is 
able to enrich a man ? One thing, and only one — philoso- 
phy. But this consists in keeping the guardian spirit within 
a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains 
and pleasures, doing nothi?ig without a pippose, nor yet 
falsely, and with hypocrisy .... accepting all that 
happens and all that is allotted .... and finally 
ivaiting for death with a cheerful mind r (ii. 17.) 

" If thou findest in human life anything better than jus- 
tice, truth, temperance, fortitude, and, in a word, than thine 
own soul's satisfaction in the things which it enables thee to 
do according to right reason, and in the condition that is 
assigned to thee without thy own choice ; if, I say, thou 
seest anything betten than this, turn to it with all thy soul, 
and enjoy that which thou hast found to be the best. But 
.... if thou'lindest everything else smaller and of less 
value than this, give place to nothing else .... Simply 
and freely choose the better, and hold to it." (iii. 6.) 



HIS ''MEDITATIOXS:' 2S5 

" Body, soul, intelligence : to the body belong sensations, 
to/the soul appetites, to the intelligence principles." To be 
impressed by the senses is peculiar to animals ; to be pulled 
by the strings of desire belongs to effeminate men, and to 
men like Phalaris or Nero ; to be guided only by intelli- 
gence belongs to atheists and traitors, and "men who do 
their impure deeds when they have shut the doors. . . . 
There remains that which is pecuhar to the good man, fo be 
pleased and content with what happens^ and with the thread 
which is spun for him; and not to defile the divijiity which 
is planted in his breast^ nor disturb it by a crowd of images; 
but to preserve it tranquil, following it obediently as a god, 
neither saying an}1:hing contrar}^ to truth, nor doing any- 
thing contrary to justice, (iii. 16.) 

'• Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the coun- 
try, sea-shores, and mountains, and thou too art wont to de- 
sire such things ver}^ much. But this is altogether a mark 
of tl:e commonest sort of men, for it is in thy power when- 
ever thou shalt chose to retire into thyself. For twwhere 
either with 7nor-e quiet or tenth more freedom does a maji 
retire tha?i i?ito his own soul, particularly when he has 
witllin him such thoughts that by looking into them he 
is immediately in perfect tranquillity, — which is nothing else 
than the good ordering of the mind." (iv. 3.) 

" Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me? Not 
so, but happy am I though this has happened to me, be- 
cause I continue free from pain ; neither crushed by the 
present, nor fearing the future." (iv. 19.) 

It is just possible that in some of these passages some 
readers may detect a trace of painful self-consciousness, and 
ijnagine that they detect a little grain of self-complacence. 
Something of self-consciousness is perhaps mevitable in the 



2S6 MARCUS AURELIUS. 

diary and examination of his own conscience by one who 
sat on such a lonely height ; but self-complacency there is 
none. Nay, there is sometimes even a cruel sternness in 
the way in which the Emperor speaks of his own self. He 
certainly dealt not with himself in the manner of a dissem- 
bler with God. " When," he says (x. 8), " thou hast as- 
sumed the names of a man who is good, modest, rational, 
magnanimous, cling to those names; and if thou shouldst 

lose them, quickly return to them For to contbme to 

he such as thou hast hithe^-to been, and to be torn in pieces, 
and defiled in such a life, is the character of a very stupid 
mian, and one over -fond of his life, and like those half- 
dezo'.ircd fight£?-s with wild beasts, who, though covered with 
ziwmids arid gore, still entreat to be kept till the fjllowing 
day, though they will be exposed in the sai/ie state to the 
sa?}ie claws and bites. Therefore fix thyself in the posses- 
sion of these few names: and if thou art able to abide 
in them., abide as if thou vrere removed to the Islands 
of the Blest." Alas! to Aurelius, in this life, the Islands of 
the Blest were very far away. Heathen philosophy was ex- 
alted and eloquent, but all its votaries were sad ; to " the 
peace of God, which passeth all understanding," it was not 
given them to attain. We see JNIarcus "wise, self-governed, 
tender, thankful, blameless," says Mr. Arnold, "yet\sdthall 
this ag"tated, stretching out his arms for something beyond 
— tende7itemque manue 7'ipcB ulterior is amore^ 

I will quote m conclusion but three short precepts : — 
" Be cheerful, and seek not external help, nor the tran- 
quillity which others give. A man must stand erect, not be 
kept erect by others T (iv. 5.) 

^'Be like the promontory against which the waves contin- 



\ 



HIS ''MEDITATIOXS:' 287 

vally break, but it stands fir7n and tames the fury of the 
water around it'' (iv. 49.) 

This comparison has been used many a time since the 
days of Marcus Aurelius. The reader will at once recall 
Goldsmith's famous lines: — 

" As some tall cliff that rears its a^vful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midv.^ay leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 

" Short is the little that remains to thee of life. Live as 
on a mountain. For it makes no difference whether a man 
lives there or here, if he lives everywhere in the world as in 
a civil community. Let men see, let them know a real man 
v>mo lives as he was meant to live. If they cannot endure 
him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live as 
men do." (x. 15.) 

Such were some of the thoughts which Marcus Aurelius 
wrote in his diary after days of battle with the Quadi, and 
the iSiarcomanni, and the Sarmatse. Isolated from others 
no less by moral grandeur than by the supremacy of his 
sovereign rank, he sought the society of his own noble soul. 
I sometimes imagine that I see him seated on the borders 
of some gloomy Pannonian forest or Hungarian marsh ; 
through the darkness the watchfires of the enemy gleam in 
the distance; but both among them, and in the camp 
around him, every sound is hushed,' except the tread of the 
sentinel outside the imperial tent ; and in that tent long 
after midnight sits the patient Emperor by the h'ght of his 
solitary lamp, and ever and anon, amid his lonely musings, 
he pauses to write down the pure and holy thoughts which 
shall better enable him, even in a Roman palace, even on 
barbarian battlefields, daily to tolerate the meanness and 



28S MARCUS A UR ELI US. 

the malignity of the men aromid him ; daily to amend his 
own shortcomings, and, as the sun of earthly life begins to 
set, da'.ly to draw nearer and nearer to the Eternal Light. 
And when I thus think of him, I know not whether the 
who'e of heathen antiquity, out of its gahery of stately and 
royal figures, can furnish a nobler, or purer, or more lovable 
picture than that of this crowned philosopher and laurelled 
hero, who was yet one of the humblest and one of the most 
enlightened of all ancient " Seekers after God." 



( 



CONCLUSION. 



A SCEPTICAL writer has observed, wdth something Hke a 
sneer, that the noblest utterances of Gospel morality may 
be paralleled from the writings of heathen philosophers. 
The sneer is pointless, and Christian moraHsts have sponta- 
neously drawn attention to the fact. In this volume, so far 
from trying to conceal that it is so, I have taken pleasure 
in placing side by side the words of Apostles and of Phi- 
losophers. The divine origin of Christianity does not rest 
on its moraHty alone. By the aid of the light which was 
within them, by deciphering the Islw written on their own 
consciences, however much its letters may have been obht- 
erated or dimmed, Plato, and Cicero, and Seneca, and Ep- 
ictetus, and Aurelius were enabled to grasp and to enunci- 
ate a multitude of great and memorable truths; yet they 
themselves would have been the first to admit the wavering 
uncertainty of their hopes and speculations, and the abso- 
lute necessity of a further illumination. So strong did that 
necessity appear to some of the wisest among them, that 
Socrates ventures in express words to prophesy the futrue 
advent of some heaven-sent Guide.* Those who imaofine 



"o' 



* Xen. Mem. i, iv. 14; Plato, Alcib. ii. 



290 CONCLUSION. 

that without a written revelatiou it would hav^e been possi- 
ble to learn all that is necessary for man's well-being, are 
speaking in direct contradiction of the greatest heathen 
teachers, in contradiction even of those very teachers to 
whose "RTiting they point as the proof of their assertion. 
Augustine was expressing a very deep conviction when he 
said that in Plato and in Cicero he met with many utter- 
ances Vv^hich were beautiful and wise, but among them all 
he never found, " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are 
heavy laden, and I will refresh you." Glorious as was the 
wisdom of ancient thought, its knowledge respecting the 
indwelling of the Spirit, the resurrection of the body, and 
the forgiveness of sins, was but fragmentary and vague. 
Bishop Butler has justly remarked that '"The great doc- 
trines of a future state, the dangers of a course of wicked- 
ness, and the efficacy of repentance are not only confirmed 
in the Gospel, but are taught, especially the last is, -with a 
degree of light to which that of nature is darkness." 

The morality of Paganism was, on its own confession, 
iusuficient. It was tentative, where Christianity is authori- 
tative : it was dim and partial, where Christianity is bright 
and complete ; it was inadequate to rouse the sluggish care- 
lessness of mankind, where Christianity came in with an 
imperial and awakening power; it gives only a rule, where 
Christianity supplies 2. principle. And even where its teach- 
ings were absolutely coincident with those of Scripture, it 
failed to ratify them with a sufficient sanction ; it failed to 
announce them %vith the same powerful and contagious 
a,rdour; it failed to furnish an absolutely faultless and vivid 
example of their practice ; it failed to inspire them with an 
irresistible motive ; it failed to support them with a power- 



CONCLUSION. 291 

ful comfort under the difficulties which were sure to be 
encountered in the aim after a consistent and holy life. 

The attempts of the Christian Fathers to show that the 
truths of ancient philosophy were borrowed from Scripture 
are due in some cases to ignorance and in some to a want 
of perfect honesty in controversial deaHng. That Gideon 
(Jerubbaal) is identical with the priest Hierombalos who 
supphed information to Sanchoniathon, the Berytian; 
that Thales pieced together a philosophy from fragments 
of J ewish truth learned in Phoenicia ; that Pythagoras and 
Democritus availed themselves of Hebraic traditions, col- 
lected during their travels; that Plato is a mere " Atticising 
Moses;" that Aristotle picked up his ethical system from a 
Jew whom he met in Asia ; that Seneca corresponded with 
St. Paul : are assertions every bit as unhistorical and false as 
that Homer was thinking of Genesis when he described the 
shield of Achilles, or (as Clemens of Alexandria gravely 
informs us) that Miltiades won the battle of Marathon by 
copying the strategy of the battle of Beth-Horon! To say 
that Pagan morality "kindled its laded taper at the Gospel 
light, whether furtively or unconsciously taken," and that it 
"dissembled the obligation, and made a boast of the splen- 
dour as though it were originally her own, or were sufficient 
in her hands for the moral illumination of the world;" is to 
make an assertion wholly untenable.* Seneca, Epictetu5, 
Aurehus, are among the truest and loftiest of Pagan moralists, 
yet Seneca ignored the Christians, Epictetus despised, and 
Aurelius persecuted them. All three, so far as they knew 

* See for various statements in this passage, Josephus, c. Apion. ii. 
§ 36; Cic. De Fin. v. 25; Ciem. Alex. Strom. 1, xxii. 150, xxv. v. 14 j 
Euseb.j Prcef. Evang. x. 4, ix, 5, &c. ; Lactant. Inst. Div. iv, 2, &c. 

9 



292 CONCLUSION, 

anything about the Christians at all, had unhappily been 
taught to look upon them aS the most detestable sect of 
what they had long regarded as the most degraded and the 
most detestable of religions. 

There is something very touching in this fact; but, if 
there be something very touching, there is also sometliing 
very encouraging. God was their God as well as ours — their 
Creator, their Preserver, who left not Himself without wit- 
ness among them ; who, as they blindly felt after Him, suf- 
fered their groping hands to grasp the hem of his His robe; 
who sent them rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling 
their hearts with joy and gladness. And His Spirit was 
with them, dwelling in them, though unseen and unknown, 
purifying and sanctifying the temple of their hearts, send- 
ing gleams of illuminating light through the gross dark- 
ness which encompassed them, comforting their uncertain- 
ties, making intercession for them with groaning which can- 
not be uttered. And more than all, cicr Suviour was their 
Saviour, too; He, whom they regarded as a crucified male- 
factor was their true invisible King ; through His right- 
eousness their poor merits were accepted; their inward 
sicknesses were healed; He whose worship they denounced 
as an "execrable superstition" stood suppHcating for them 
at the right hand of the Majesty on high, helping them 
(though they knew Him not) to crush all that was evil 
within them, and pleading for them when they persecuted 
even the most beloved of His saints, "Father, forgive 
them; for they know not what they do." 

Yes, they too were all His offspring. Even if they had 
not been, should we grudge that some of the children's 
meat should be given unto dogs ? Shall we deny to these 
"unconscious prophecies of heathendom" their oracular 



coxcL usioy. 293 

significance? Shall we be jealous of the ethical loftiness 
of a Plato or an Aurelius ? Shall we be loth to admit that 
some power of the Spirit of Christ, even mid the dark 
wanderings of Seneca's life, kept him still conscious of a 
nobler and a better way, or that some sweetness of a divine 
hope' inspired the depressions of Epictetus in his slavery? 
Shall our eye be evil because God in His goodness granted 
the heathen also to know such truths as enabled them ''to 
overcome the allurements of the visible and the terrors of 
the invisible world?" Yes, if we have of the Christian 
Chuch so mean a conception that we look upon it as a 
mere human society, "set; up in the world to defend a cer- 
tain religion against a certain other religion." But if on 
the other hand we believe "that it was a society established 
by God as a witness for the true conditio7i of all human 
beings^ we shall rejoice to acknowledge its members to be 
what they believed themselves to be, — confessors and mar- 
tyrs for a truth which they could not fully embrace or com- 
prehend, but which, through their lives and deaths, through 
the right and wrong acts, the true and false words, of those • 
who understand them least, was to manifest and prove 
itself. Those who hold this conviction dare not conceal, 
or misrepresent, or undervalue, any one of those weighty 
and memorable sentences which are to be found in the 
Meditation of Marcjs Aurelius. If they did, they would be 
underrating a portion of that ve?y truth which the preachers 
of the Gospel were appointed to set forth ; they would be 
adopting the error of the philosophical Emperor without 
his excuse for it. Nor dare they pretend that the Cliristian 
teaching had unconsciously imparted to him a portion of its 
own light while he seem.ed to exclude it. They will beheve 
that it was God's good pleasure that a certain truth should 



294 CONCL USION. 

be seized and apprehended by this age, and they will see 
indications of what that truth was in the efforts of Plutarch 
to understand the ' Dsmon ' which guided Socrates, in the 
courageous language of Ignatius, in the bewildering dreams 
of the Gnostics, in the eagerness of Justin Martyr to prove 
Christianity a philosophy . . . in the apprehension of Chris- 
tian principles by Marcus Aurelius, and in his hatred of the 
Christians. From eveiy side they will derive evidence, that 
a doctrine and society which were meant for 7nankind caji- 
not depend iip07i the partial views and apprehensions of men, 
must go 071 just fying^ reconciling, co?ifuting, those views and 
apprehensions hy the de77iofistratio7i of facts," *' 

But perphaps some reader will say, What advantage, 
then, can we gain by studying in Pagan writers truths which 
are expressed more nobly, more clearly, and infinitely more 
effectually in our own sacred books? Before a.isv/ering 
the question, let me mention the traditional anecdote f of 
the Caliph Omar. When he conquered Alexandria, he 
was shown its magnificient library, in which were collected 
untold treasures of hterature, gathered together by the zeal, 
the labour, and the liberality of a dynasty of kings. '• Vvliat 
is the good of all those books ? " he said. " They are either 
in accordance with the Koran, or contrary to it. If the 
former they are superfluous ; if the latter they are perni- 
cious. In either case let them be burnt." Burnt they 
were, as legend tells ; but all the world has condemned 
the Caliph's reasoning as a piece of stupid Philistinism and 
barbarous bigotry. Perhaps the question as to the use 

* Maurice, Fhilos. of the First Six Centuries, p. 37. We venture 
specially to recommend this weighty and beautiful passage to the read- 
er's serious attention. 

\ Now known to be unhistorical. 



CONCLUSIO.W 295 

of reading Pagan ethics is equally unphilosophical ; at any 
rate, we can spare but very few words to its consideration. 
The answer obviously is, that God has spoken to men, 
TtoXvjiiEpcD^ Hat noXvTpoitGsi, "at sundry times and in 
divers manners," * with a richly variegated wisdom. | 
Sometimes He has taught truth by the voice of Hebrew 
prophets, sometimes by the voice of Pagan philosophers. 
And all His voices demand our listening ear. If it was 
given to the Jew to speak with diviner insight and intenser 
power, it is given to the Gentile also to speak at times 
with a large and lofty utterance, and we may learn truth 
from men of alien lips and another tongue. They, too, had 
the dream, the vision, the dark saying upon the harp, the 
"daughter of a voice," the mystic flashes upon the graven 
gems. And such truths come to us with a singular force 
and freshness ; with a strange beauty as the doctrines of a 
less brightly illuminated manhood ; with a new power of 
conviction from their originality of form, which, because it 
is less famiHar to us, is well calculated to arrest our atten- 
tion after is has been paralysed by familiar repetitions. 
We cannot afford to lose these heathen testimonies to 
Christian truth; or to hush the glorious utterances of Muse 
and Sibyl which have justly outlived "the drums and 
tramplings of a hundred triumphs." We may make 
them infinitely profitable to us. If St. Paul quotes 
Aratus, and Menander, and Epimenides, { and per- 
haps more than one lyrical melody besides, with earn- 
est appreciation, — if the inspired Apostle could both 
learn himself and teach others out of the utterances of a 

* Heb. i. I. 

t TtoXvTtomiXoi doq)ia. 

% See Acts xvii, 28 ; i Cor. ; Tit. i. 12, 



296 COXCLUSIOX. 

Cretan philosopher and an Attic comedian, — we may be 
sure that many of Seneca's apophthe^ams would have 
filled him with pleasure, and that he would have been able 
to read Epictetus and Aurelius with the same noble admir- 
ation which made him see with thankful emotion that mem- 
orable altar to the Unknown God. 

Let us then make a brief and final sketch of the three great 
Stoics whose lives we have been contemplating, with a view 
to summing up their specialties, their deficiencies, and the 
peculiar relations to, or divergences from, Christian truth, 
which their writings present to us. 

" Seneca ssepe noster," " Seneca, often our own," is the 
expression of Tertullian, and he uses it as an excuse for 
frequent references to his works. Yet if, of the three, 
he be most like Christianity in particular passages, he di- 
verges most widely from it in his general spirit. 

He diverges from Christianity in many of his modes of 
regarding life, and in many of his most important beliefs. 
What, for instance, is his main conception of the Deity? 
Seneca is generally a Pantheist. No doubt he speaks of 
God's love and goodness, but with him God is no personal 
living Father, but the soul of the universe — the fiery', prim- 
aeval, eternal principle which transfuses an inert, and no less 
eternal, matter, and of which our souls are, as it were, but 
divine particles or passing sparks. " God," he says, " is 
Nature, is Fate, is Fortune, is the Universe, is the all- 
pervading iMind. He cannot change the substance of 
the universe. He is himself under the power of Destiny, 
which is uncontrollable and immutable. It is not God 
who rolls the thunder, it is Fate. He does not rejoice 
in His works, but is identical with them." In fact, Seneca 
would have heartily adopted the words of Pope : 



CONCLUSION. 297 

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole. 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul." 

Though there m-ey be a vague sense in which those 
words may be admitted and explained by Christians, yet, 
in the mind of Seneca, they led to conclusions directly 
opposed to those of Christianity. With him, for instance, 
the wise man is the equal of God ; not His adorer, not His 
servant, not His suppliant, but His associate, His relation. 
He differs from God in time alone. Hence all prayer is 
needless he says, and the forms of external worship are 
superfluous and puerile. It is foolish to beg for that which 
you can impart to yourself. ''What need is there oivows? 
Make 7^z/rj-(?^ happy." Nay, in the intolerable arrogance 
which marked the worst aberration of Stoicism, the wise 
man is under certain aspects placed even higher than God 
— higher than God Himself — because God is beyond the 
reach of misfortunes, but the wise man is superior to their 
anguish ; and because God is good of necessity, but the 
wise man from choice. This wretched and inflated para- 
dox occurs in Seneca's treatise Oil Providence, and in the 
same treatise he glorifies suicide, and expresses a doubt as 
to the immortality of the soul. 

Again, the two principles on which Seneca relied as 
the basis of all his moral system are : first, the principle 
that we ought to follow Nature ; and, secondly, the sup- 
posed perfectibihty of the ideal man. 

I. Now, of course, if we explain this precept of "follow- 
ing Nature " as Juvenal has explained it, and say that the 
voice of Nature is always coincident with the voice of phil- 
osophy — if we prove that our real nature is none other than 
the dictate of our highest and most nobly trained reason, 
and if we can establish the fact that every deed of cruelty, 



298 COXCLUSIO.V, 

of shame, of lust, or of selfishness, is essentially contrary 
to our nature — then we may say with Bishop Butler, that 
the precept to " follow Nature " is "a manner of speaking 
not loose and undeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly 
just and true." But how complete must be the system, 
how long the preliminary training, which alone can enable 
us to find any practical value, any appreciable aid to a 
virtuous life, in a dogma such as this ! And, in the 
hands of Seneca, it becomes a very empty formula. He 
entirely lacked the keen insight and dialectic subtlety of 
such a writer as Bishop Butler ; and, in his explanation 
of this Stoical shibboleth, any real meaning which it may 
possess is evaporated into a gorgeous mist of confused dec- 
lamation and splendid commonplace. 

2. Nor is he much more fortunate with his ideal man. 
This pompous abstraction presents us with a conception at 
once ambitious and sterile. The Stoic wise man is a sort 
of moral Phoenix, impossible and repulsive. He is intrepid 
in dangers, free from ^all passion, happy in adversity, calm 
in the storm ; he alone knows how to live, because he 
alone knows how to die ; he is the master of the world, 
because he is master of himself, and the equal of God ; he 
looks down upon everything with sublime imperturbability, 
despising the sadnesses of humanity and smiHng with 
irritating loftiness at all our hopes and all our fears. But, 
in another sketch of this faultless and unpleasant monster, 
Seneca presents us, not the proud athlete who challenges 
the universe and is invulnerable to all the stings and arrows 
of passion or of fate, but a hero in the serenity of absolute 
triumph, more tender, indeed, but still without desires, 
without passions, without needs, who can fell no pity, 
because pity is a weakness which disturbs his sapient calm ! 



COXCLUSION. 299 

Well might the eloquent Bossuet exclaim, as he read of 
these chimerical perfections, " It is to take a tone too lofty 
for feeble and mortal men. But, O maxims truly pom- 
pous ! O affected insensibility ! O false and imaginary wis- 
dom ! which fancies itself strong because it is hard, and 
generous because it is puffed up ! How are these principles 
opposed to the modest simplicity of the Saviour of souls, 
who, in our Gospel contemplating His faithful ones in 
affliction, confesses that they will be saddened by it ! ''Ye 
shall 7ueep and Lzmaity Shall Christians be jealous of 
such wisdom as Stoicism did really attain, when they com- 
pare this dry and bloodless ideal Avith Him who wept over 
Jerusalem and mourned by the grave of Lazarus, who had 
a mother and a friend, who disdained none, who pitied all, 
who humbled Himself to death, even the death of the 
cross, whose divine excellence we cannot indeed attain 
because He is God, but whose example we can imitate 
because He was very man ? * 

The one grand aim of the life and philosophy of 
Seneca was Ease. It is the topic which constantly recurs 
in his books On a Happy Life, On Tranquility of Mind, 
On Anger, and O71 the Ease and On the Elrmness of 
the Sage. It is the pitiless apathy, the stern repression, 
of every form of emotion, which was constantly glori- 
fied as the aim of philosophy. It made Stilpo exclaim, 
when he had lost wife, property, and children, that 
he had lost nothing, because he carried in his own person 
everything which he possessed. It led Seneca into all 
that is most unnatural, all that is most fantastic, and all 
that is least sincere in his writings ; it was the bitter source 

* See Martha, Les Moralistes, p. 50 ; Aubertin, S^nhjue et St, Paul, 
p. 250. • 



300 COXCLUSION. 

of disgrace and failure in his life. It comes out worst of 
all in h!s book Oti Anger. Aristotle had said that " Anger 
was a good servant but a bad master j" Plato had recog- 
nized the immense value and importance of the irascible 
element in the moral constitution. Even Christian writers, 
in spite of Bishop Butler, have often lost sight of this truth, 
and have forgotten that to a noble nature " the hate of 
hate" and the "scorn of scorn" are as indispensable as 
"the love of love." But Seneca almost gets angry himself 
at the very notion of the wise man being angr}^ and indig- 
nant even against moral evil. No, he must not get angry, 
because it would disturb his sublime calm ; and, if he al- 
lowed himself to be 'angry at wrong-doing, he would have 
to be angry all day long. This practical Epicureanism, this 
idle acquiescence in the supposed incurability of evil, pois- 
oned all Seneca's career. " He had tutored himself," says 
Professor Maurice, " to endure personal injuries without in- 
dulging an anger j he had tutored himself to look upon all 
moral evil without anger. If the doctrine is sound and the 
disciphne desirable, we must be content to take the whole 
result of them. If we will not do that, we must resolve to 
hate oppression and wTong, eve7i at the cost of philosophical 
composure^ But repose is not to be our aim : — 

" We have no right to bliss, 
No title from the gods to welfare and repose." 

It is one of the truths which seems to me most needed 
in the modern reHgious world, that the type of a Christian's 
^nrtue must be very miserable, and ordinary, and ineffectual, 
if he does not feel his whole soul bum within him with an 
almost implacable moral indignation at. the sight of cruelty 
and injustice, of Pharisaic faithlessness and social crimes. 



CONCLUSION. 301 

I have thus freely criticised the radical defects of Stoic- 
ism, so far as Seneca is its legitimate exponent ; but I can- 
not consent to leave him with the language of depreciation, 
and therefore here I will once more endorse what an anony- 
mous writer has said of him : "An unconscious Christianity 
covers all his sentiments. If the fair fame of the man is 
sullied, the aspiration to a higher life cannot be denied to 
the philosopher ; if the tinkHng cymbal of a stilted Stoicism 
sometimes sounds through the nobler music, it still leaves 
the truer melody vibrating on the ear." 

2. If Seneca sought for Ease, the grand aim of Epictetus 
was Freedom, of Marcus Aurelius was Self-Government. 
This difference of aim characterises their entire philosophy, 
though all three of them are filled with precepts which arise 
from the Stoical contempt of opinion, of fortune, and of 
death. " Epictetus, the slave, with imperturbable calm, 
voluntarily strikes off the desire for all those blessings of 
which fortune had already deprived him. Seneca, who 
lived in the Court, fenced himself beforehand against mis- 
fortune with the spirit of a man of the world and the em- 
phasis of a master of eloquence. Marcus Aurelius, at the 
zenith of human power — having nothing to dread except his 
passions, and finding nothing above him except immutable 
necessity, — surveys his own soul and meditates especially 
on the eternal march of things. The one is the resigned 
slave, who neither desires nor fears ; the other, the great 
lord, who has everything to lose; the third, finally, the em- 
peror, who is dependent only on himself and upon God." 

Of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius we shall have very 
little to say by way of summary, for they show no inconsis- 
tencies and very few of the imperfections which characterise 
Seneca's ideal of the Stoic philosophy. The "moral ped- 



2,02 COXCL USIOX. 

dling," the pedagogic display, the puerile ostentation, the 
antithetic brilliancy, which we have had to point out in 
Seneca, are wanting in them. The picture of the inner liiQ, 
indeed, of Seneca, his efforts after self-discipline, his untir- 
ing asceticism, his enthusiasm for all that he esteems holy 
and of good report — this picture, marred as it is by rhetoric 
and vain self-conceit, yet "stands out in noble contrast to 
the swinishness of the Campanian villas, and is, in its com- 
plex entirety, very sad and affecting." And yet we must 
admit, in the words of the same writer, that when we go 
from Seneca to Epictetus and Marcus Aurehus, "it is going 
from the florid to the severe, from varied feeUng to the im- 
personal simplicity of the teacher, often from idle rhetoric 
to devout earnestness." As far as it goes, the morality of 
these two great Stoics is entirely noble and entirely beauti- 
ful. If there be even in Epictetus some passing and occa- 
sional touch of Stoic arrogance and Stoic apathy ; if there 
be in Marcus Aurelius a depth and intensity of sadness 
which shows how comparatively powerless for comfort was 
a philosophy which glorified suicide, which knew but little 
of immortahty, and which lost in vague Pantheism the un- 
speakable blessing of reahzing a personal relation to a per- 
sonal God and Father — there is yet in both of them enough 
and more than enough to show that in all ages and in all 
countries they who have sought for God have found 
Him, that they have attained to high principles of thought 
and to high standards of action — that they have been 
enabled, even in the thick darkness, resolutely to place 
their feet at least on the lowest rounds of that ladder of 
sunbeams which winds up through the darkness to the great 
Father of Lights. 



■COXCLUSION. 



303 



And yet the very existence of such men is in itself 
a significant comment upon the Scriptural decision 
that "the world by wisdom knew not God." For 
how many like them, out of all the records of anti- 
quity, is it possible for us to count ? Are there five 
men in the whole circle of ancient history and ancient 
literature to whom we could, without a sense of incon- 
gruity, accord the title of "holy?" When wc have 
mentioned Socrates, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurehus, 
I hardly know of another. Just men there were 
in multitudes — men capable of high actions ; men 
eminently worthy to be loved; men, I .doubt not, 
who, when the children of the kingdom shall be re- 
jected, shall be gathered from the east and the west 
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, into the kingdom of 
heaven. Yes, just men in multitudes ; but how many 
righteous^ how many holy ? Some, doubtless, whom 
we do not know, whose names were never written, 
even for a few years, on the records of mankind — men 
and women in unknown villages and humble homes, 
"the faithful who v/ere not famous." We do not doubt 
that there were such — but were they relatively numer- 
ous? If those who rose above the level of the multi- 
tude — if those whom some form of excellence, and often 
of virtue, elevated into the reverence of their fellows — • 
present to us a few e?camples of stainless life, can we hope 
that a tolerable ideal of sanctity vvas attained by any large 
proportion of the ordinary myriads ? Seeing that the dan- 
gerous lot of the majority v/as cast amid the weltering sea 
of popular depravity, can vre venture to hope that many 
of them succeeded in reachii^g some green inland of purity, 
integrity, and calm ? ^^"e can hardy think it; and yet, in 



304 CONCLUSION. 

the dispensation of the Kingdom of Heaven we see such a 
condition daily realized. Not only do we see many of the 
eminent, but also countless multitudes of the lowly and ob- 
scure, whose common lives are, as it were, transfigured with 
a light from heaven. Unhappy, indeed, is he who has not 
known such men in person, and whose hopes and habits 
have not caught some touch of radiance reflected from the 
nobility and virtue of lives like these. The thought has 
been well expressed by the author oi Ecce Homo, and we 
may well ask with him, "If this be so, has Christ failed, or 
can Christianity die ?" 

No, it has not failed ; it cannot die ; for the saving know- 
ledge which it has imparted is the most inestimable blessing 
which God has granted to our race. We have watched 
philosophy in its loftiest flight, but that flight rose as far 
above the range of the Pagan populace as Ida or Olympus 
rises above the plain : and even the topmost crests of Ida 
and Olympus are immeasurably below the blue vault, the 
body of heaven in its clearness, to which it has been granted 
to some Christians to attain. As regards the multitude, 
philosophy had no influence over the heart and character; 
" it was sectarian, not universal ; the religion of the few, not 
of the many. It exercised no creative power ov^r political 
or social life ; it stood in no such relation to the past as the 
New Testament to the Old. Its best thoughts were but 
views and aspects of the truth ; there was no centre around 
which they moved, no divine life by which they were im- 
pelled ; they seemed to vanish and flit in uncertain succession 
of light." But Christianity, on the other hand, glowed with 
a steady and unwavering brightness ; it not only swayed the 
hearts of individuals by stirring them to their utmost depths, 
but it moulded the laws of nations, and regenerated the 



CONCLUSION. 305 

whole condition of society. It gave to mankind a fresh 
sanction in the word of Christ, a perfect example in His 
life, a powerful motive in His love, an all sufficient comfort 
in the life of immortality made sure and certain to us by 
His Resurrection and Ascension. But if without this sanc- 
tion, and example, and motive, and comfort, the pagans 
could learn to do His will, — if, amid the gross darkness 
through which glitters the degraded civilization of imperial 
Rome, an Epictetus and an Aurelius could live blameless 
lives in a cell and on a throne, and a Seneca could practise 
simplicity and self-denial in the midst of luxury and pride — 
how much loftier should be both the zeal and the attain- 
ments of us to whom God has spoken by His Son ? What 
manner of men ought we to be ? If Tyre and Sidon and 
Sodom shall rise in the judgment to bear witness against 
Chorazin and Bethsaida, may not the pure lives of these 
great Seekers after God add a certain emphasis of condem- 
nation to the vice, the pettiness, the mammon-worship of 
many among us to whom His love. His nature. His at- 
tributes have been revealed w!th a clearness and fullness of 
knowledge for which kings and philosophers have sought in- 
deed and sought earnestly, but sought in vain ? 



THE END. 



LOVELL'S LIBRARY. 



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